Medication Errors: The Hidden Epidemic in Healthcare
Medication errors are preventable events that can cause inappropriate medication use or patient harm. They may occur at any stage of the medication-use process, including prescribing, dispensing, administration, and monitoring. Despite advances in healthcare systems, medication errors continue to affect millions of patients globally, often going unnoticed.
Prescribing errors include wrong drug selection, incorrect dose or frequency, and failure to consider patient-specific factors such as age, renal function, or polypharmacy. Dispensing errors frequently arise from look-alike sound-alike medicines, incorrect labeling, or wrong strengths, especially in high-workload settings. Administration errors, such as incorrect timing, dose omission, or wrong route, occur closest to the patient and carry immediate risk. Monitoring failures, including lack of therapeutic or laboratory follow-up, further contribute to preventable harm.
A major challenge is underreporting. Fear of blame, legal consequences, heavy workload, and absence of non-punitive reporting systems lead many errors to remain undocumented. As a result, healthcare systems lose opportunities to learn and improve.
Medication errors increase morbidity, mortality, hospital stay, and healthcare costs, while also eroding patient trust. Pharmacists play a critical role in prevention through medication reconciliation, prescription review, patient counseling, and use of safety technologies. However, lasting improvement requires a strong safety culture focused on system correction rather than individual blame.
Is our healthcare system more focused on blaming individuals than fixing unsafe systems?
MBH/PS