Hospital reports lower rate of medication errors

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

With heightened awareness of patient safety in the national news, Community Hospital is proud of its low medication error rates, but continues to work to reduce the error rate further, according to Jim Ulrich, Community Hospital President and CEO.

Of the 13,248 medications administered to patients during July, August and September, the hospital's error rate for the first quarter was far less than 1 percent, Ulrich said. In July, the medication error rate 0.458 percent (.00458), in August the error rate was 0.208 percent (.00208) and in September the error rate was only 0.193 percent (.00193).

"Not only are medication errors reported, they are rated as to the severity of the error," he said. Errors are rated with Severity 0, meaning no actual error reached the patient; Severity 1, meaning the error reached the patient, but there was no harm; Severity 2 meaning an error occurred, with increased monitoring of the patient, but there was no harm; and Severity 3 meaning an error occurred, the patient had a change in vital signs, but there was no harm to the patient, and so on, up to Severity 6.

All of the medications errors reported in the third quarter either did no harm to the patient or did not even reach the patient. Furthermore, the majority of those medication errors that did reach the patient and caused no harm were due to the timing the mediation was given.

As a Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations accredited hospital, Community Hospital is required to achieve JCAHO's Patient Safety Goals, Ulrich said. Many of these goals refer to administering medications safety, such as:

* checking for two patient identifiers before administering meds

* explaining the name of the medication and what it is used for before giving the medication to the patient

* standardizing a list of abbreviations, symbols and dose designations to avoid confusion

* identifying a list of look-alike/sound-alike drugs used by Community Hospital

* providing a complete list of medications to the patient on discharge from the hospital

In 2004, Community Hospital purchased automated medication dispensing AcuDose-RX systems for the patient pods, emergency room and the surgery department. The medication cabinets work similar to a local ATM. Nurses can retrieve the medicine, which is locked down, by entering a specific code that allows access to a patient's list of medications. Inside are pre-packaged medicines stocked earlier by the pharmacy staff.

The system provides an extremely high level of medication security and tracking. "There is evidence that these types of systems reduce medication errors," said Anthony Rodewald, Director of Pharmacy. "The system helps to ensure accurate dispensing, administering and tracking of unit-dose medications. It electronically monitors any transactions that take place, helping to reduce the possibility for medication errors."

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