A Literature Review of Medication Errors in the United States of America
Ayuk Agbor, Gregory (2016)
Ayuk Agbor, Gregory
Yrkeshögskolan Arcada
2016
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2016053010855
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2016053010855
Tiivistelmä
This study is a review fifteen articles selected from 395 articles of medication error in the United States of America between the year 2000 and 2015 from the CINAHL and Aca-demic Search Elite databases. This study explored existing literature on medication error with the aim of providing knowledge about safe medical care. The goal of the study was to shed light to the following questions: (1) What factors contribute to the medication errors? (2). What can be done to mitigate these errors? Broadly speaking, deficits in knowledge and performance, lack of resources, tiredness, work environment, documentation, lack of information and failure to use available information, policy violation, product similarity and inexperience were identified as the causes of medication errors. The study identified education and training, improving the work environment, employing full-time unit based pharmacist, use of technology and encouraged error reporting as tested strategies that can reduce medication errors. This study reveals that management strategies that can better reduce errors should focus on the system as a whole and not just on individuals. It is evident in this study that medication errors are still quite common and are made by all categories of care professionals. This study is faced with the limitation to fifteen articles selected from two databases. The findings might be affected if a larger sample size is used. This work was commissioned by Arcada university of Applied sciences.