As practice physicians, it may be aware that medical
errors are extremely common in hospitals and clinical practices. These errors
may occur when writing prescriptions or due to involuntary and inaccurate
medical decisions, ultimately, harm patients.
A few years ago, India's Supreme Court has ruled
against a large hospital, passing a verdict with the maximum penalty up to date
on them. One of the points that have been taken against the hospital was a
prescription error caused by the attending physician. The manager responsible
for the hospital management for error, basically communicate what does a doctor
to the patient in the hospital premises is the responsibility of the hospital. The
point of bringing this incident is basically to bring to light a couple of
important points:
Prescription errors can be extremely harmful to
patients and hospital. The management of a hospital is also liable if it
happens in their local errors in the determination of the dose, transcription
failure, poor handwriting and misinterpretation are common sources of
prescribing errors, and occur more commonly than you think.
Here are four changes of job you can do immediately to
contain prescription errors immediately.
1.
Drug allergies and reactions are in the pre-assessment
Pre-evaluation is the first step documented interaction
between a doctor and a patient. Ensure that both evaluation sheets OPD as well
as sheets of IPD pre-assessment have a section on drug allergies and reactions.
Make an SOP mandatory that residents should obtain this
information from caregivers and patients and ensure that it is recorded in the
medical record patients ‘electronic.
2.
Include medication sheet as a record of IPD
Evaluate your record sheets of IPD and include sheet
medication as a mandatory part of IPD records. A medication sheet is a record
dedicated to drugs - prescription, administration, monitoring and
documentation. Make sure the medication sheet has a prominent field to mention
reactions and drug allergies, and make it mandatory to fill this information.
The sheet must contain the name of the drug, dose, frequency, special
instructions, confirmation of drug administration and reactions to medications.
However, by using an electronic information management
system can completely eliminate the possibility of an error at this stage. A
central registry for drugs on hospital or practice management system will give
your doctor a complete picture of the drug history including the current
medication and allergies or reactions. This will help the doctor to provide
some prescription drug interactions and possible error can be prevented.
3.
Maintain a current list of high-risk drug
Get a list of high-risk drugs made by your Committee of
Pharmaco-theraphatic and make sure it is updated from time to time. Make this
list available to all doctors and all the nursing stations. Also ensure that
this information is easily accessible in practice management system.
Physicians can consult this list in case of any doubt
about the risky nature of any medication and possible reactions or interactions
which will have within the body. Until the list is developed, made your doctors
use www.epocrates.com to counter check any medication that are doubtful
prescription.
4.
Keep track of medication errors
Make medication errors, on a monthly basis, mandatory
survey. When management begins to take serious medication errors and
investigating them, the automatically prescribing errors will start coming.
Clinical audit requirements in the area will also help. Emphasize the importance
of clinical audit in the area of prescriptions between doctors.
By using the electronic medical record and automate
your practice with an intelligent information management solution will not only
make your operations more efficient, they also reduce prescription errors
related and other human errors dramatically.
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