Any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer. A medication error can be a mistake in any step of the medication management process or system (e.g. selecting, prescribing, administering or monitoring), regardless of the causes and regardless of whether or not the error reaches the patient.

Notify the doctor immediately Consult the pharmacist for information about

drug interactions, solutions to dose-related problems and antidote.

Follow hospital policy for documenting drug errors. You may have to complete an incident report for legal purposes. If so, clearly document what happened, without defending your actions or placing blame. Record names and functions of everyone involved and what actions they took to protect the patient after the error was discovered.

Assess patient throughout Follow your facility’s drug error documentation

policy

Dosage calculation errors Drug name errors Patient name errors Missed allergy alerts Compound errors Route errors Misinterpreted abbreviations Misinterpreted orders Preparation errors Reconciliation errors Stress related errors