TO STUDY THE IMPACT OF VARIOUS INTERVENTIONS ON REDUCTION OF DRUG ADMINISTRATION ERROR FREQUENCY: A PROSPECTIVE OBSERVATIONAL STUDY

Dr. Sajad Hussain Bhat*, Dr. Farooq a jan, Dr. Mohd Yousuf Dar

ABSTRACT

To err is human and every medical professional is a human. Medication safety is essential in any setting where medications are prescribed, dispensed and/or administered. The safe administration of any medication requires that the correct medication is prescribed, then correctly dispensed, in the correct form and strength, prepared correctly and given at the correct times and in the correct dose to the correct person via the correct route. Aim And Objective: The aim of present study was to determine the impact of various intervention programmes in reducing the frequency of drug administration errors. Methods: This study was carried in continuation to previous study to ascertain the impact of various interventions to reduce the drug administration error rate. After completion of the baseline study various interventions were done to reduce the error rate and error rate was calculated after implementing intervention programmes. An observational study was carried out for a period of three months in inpatient wards of SKIMS and any descrepency observed during drug administration was recorded as an error. Results: A total of 1216 drug administrations were observed over a period of three months. Among 1216 drug administrations, errors were 103. This gives an incidence of errors as 8.4%. In the background study error rate was 12.4%. It was observed that error rate reduced significantly after intervention. Conclusion: Drug administration errors are a serious problem in the healthcare settings and need to be reduced to large extent. There is no acceptable incidence of drug administration errors.

Keywords: MAE: medication administration errors.