Using incident reports to inform the prevention of medication administration errors

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Quality and Safety
• Patient Safety
• Medication Management

Background:

• Medication administration errors are frequent, with nurses involved in their occurrence and prevention.
• Incident reporters' perspectives on preventing medication errors remain underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify strategies for preventing medication administration errors.
• To analyze healthcare professionals' views from incident reports.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative descriptive study utilizing inductive content analysis.
• Analysis of 1012 free-text medication administration incident reports from two Finnish hospitals (2013-2014).

Main Results:

• Prevention strategies fall into individual, team, and organizational categories.
• Individual strategies include accuracy, verification, and adherence to guidelines.
• Team strategies involve work distribution, information flow, and drug documentation.
• Organizational strategies encompass work environment, resources, training, guidelines, and development.

Conclusions:

• Health professionals need high moral awareness and focus during medication administration.
• Systems should support staff with a conducive work environment and collaboration.
• Prioritizing individual health professional support is key for medication safety.