Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 29, 2026

12:08
Improving IV Insulin Administration in a Community Hospital
Published on: June 11, 2012
Medication-prescribing errors in a teaching hospital. A 9-year experience
T S Lesar1, B M Lomaestro, H Pohl
1Albany Medical Center, NY, USA.
Archives of Internal Medicine
|July 28, 1997
Summary
Medication prescribing errors in hospitals increased significantly over nine years, posing a growing risk to patients. This highlights the need for robust error reduction and prevention strategies in healthcare systems.
Area of Science:
- Pharmacovigilance
- Health Services Research
- Patient Safety
Background:
- Understanding medication prescribing errors is crucial for developing effective prevention strategies.
- A systematic approach to error detection and analysis can inform healthcare practices.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze a nine-year experience with a systematic program for detecting, recording, and evaluating medication-prescribing errors in a teaching hospital.
- To identify trends and changes in the frequency and characteristics of these errors over time.
Main Methods:
- Systematic recording and analysis of all medication-prescribing errors with potential for adverse patient outcomes, averted by staff pharmacists.
- Evaluation of errors based on type, medication class, prescribing service, potential severity, time of day, and month.
- Statistical analysis to determine changes in error frequency and characteristics over the nine-year study period (1987-1995).
Main Results:
- A total of 11,186 medication-prescribing errors were detected and averted.
- The annual number of detected errors increased significantly from 522 in 1987 to 2115 in 1995.
- Error rates per order, admission, and patient-day increased significantly, correlated with increased admissions. Common errors involved antimicrobials, cardiovascular agents, and dosing issues.
Conclusions:
- Hospitalized patients face a progressively increasing risk of adverse drug events.
- Increased medical care intensity and drug use likely contribute to rising error rates.
- Similar error types recurred, and new errors emerged with new therapies, necessitating integrated error reduction mechanisms.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Errors occurring during blood pressure monitoring
Blood pressure monitoring is a crucial clinical procedure in diagnosing and managing various cardiovascular conditions. Despite its significance, the accuracy of blood pressure measurements can be compromised by multiple factors, potentially leading to either falsely high or low readings. These inaccuracies are critical as they can significantly impact patient care. So, it is vital to understand these challenges deeply and adopt strategic approaches to minimize errors.
Several factors...
Several factors...
Documentation of Nursing Diagnosis
The nurse documents nursing diagnoses and enters them into the patient record. The identified patient's nursing diagnosis is either written out with a plan of care or entered into the electronic health record.
In some settings, data-driven computerized decision support systems are in place, allowing for more accurate nursing diagnoses. The database within one of these systems includes diagnostic labels defining characteristics, activities, and indicators for nursing. A nurse enters assessment...
In some settings, data-driven computerized decision support systems are in place, allowing for more accurate nursing diagnoses. The database within one of these systems includes diagnostic labels defining characteristics, activities, and indicators for nursing. A nurse enters assessment...
Guidelines for Nursing Documentation I
Quality documentation and reporting share essential characteristics that ensure they are practical and valuable resources for those who use them. These characteristics are:
Factual:
The following points emphasize the significance of upholding accurate and unbiased documentation in healthcare.
Factual:
The following points emphasize the significance of upholding accurate and unbiased documentation in healthcare.
Dosage Regimens: Designs and Approaches
Designing a dosage regimen, which refers to the manner of drug administration, is a complex process involving the selection of drug dose, route, and frequency. This process is underpinned by pharmacokinetic parameters derived from tests and population averages. These parameters are then tailored to patient-specific variables such as diagnosis, demographics, and allergy status. Once therapy commences, therapeutic response monitoring is critical and achieved through clinical and physical...
Drug Dosing: Geriatric Patients
Elderly individuals encompass a diverse population with varying degrees of age-related physiological changes. Defining the elderly presents challenges, as the geriatric population is often arbitrarily categorized as individuals older than 65. However, many individuals in this group lead active and healthy lives, with an increasing number surpassing 85 years and falling into the older elderly category. Physiological changes associated with aging impact performance capacity and homeostatic...
Pharmaceutical Poisoning: Potential Scenarios
Pharmaceutical poisoning can occur through various channels, impacting an estimated 2 million hospitalized patients in the U.S. annually with serious adverse drug responses. These scenarios encompass both therapeutic uses, such as drug toxicity, where even standard dosages can lead to severe central nervous system depression, and non-therapeutic exposures, including accidental ingestion by children, and environmental and occupational exposures.Unintentional poisonings often involve exploratory...

