A root cause analysis project in a medication safety course.

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy education
• Patient safety
• Healthcare quality improvement

Background:

• Medication errors pose a significant risk to patient safety.
• Effective training in medication safety is crucial for future pharmacists.
• Root cause analysis (RCA) is a key methodology for understanding and preventing errors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and implement team-based root cause analysis (RCA) projects.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of these projects in a required pharmacy course.
• To enhance second-year pharmacy students' medication safety skills.

Main Methods:

• A medication safety course incorporated lectures, activities, and readings.
• Students worked in teams to conduct RCA on medication error cases.
• Teams developed error prevention strategies and presented findings.

Main Results:

• Student performance was assessed using a medication errors evaluation rubric.
• The majority of 211 students performed well on RCA assignments.
• Students rated the RCA projects favorably on course evaluations.

Conclusions:

• Team-based RCA projects successfully introduced medication error evaluation and prevention.
• The educational approach enhanced students' understanding of medication safety culture.
• This method is effective for integrating practical safety skills into pharmacy curricula.