Safety in Medication Use

An estimated 1 in 20 patients are admitted to the hospital due to problems with their medication and 1 in 100 hospitalized patients are harmed due to medication errors during their stay. The prescribing of medications is the most common health care intervention and medication safety is relevant to all health care professionals and patients, in all health care settings. Safety in Medication Use provides an overview of the theory and practice of medication safety, summarizing the international literature and practical suggestions for local practice

Each chapter is written by one or more authors from around the world who were chosen because of their standing in their field. The book covers three broad areas: problems in the medication use process, approaches to understanding and resolving them, and putting solutions into practice.

Topics discussed include:

Measuring medication errors

Improvement science

Safety culture

Incident reporting and feedback approaches

Educational interventions

Communication between health care professionals

Interventions for safer work systems

Electronic prescribing and medication administration record systems

Innovations in dispensing

Patient involvement in medication safety

Each chapter is a primer on the topic, drawing on the international literature, with the chapters on solutions followed by an "expert summary" of the implications for practice. This valuable resource describes an international body of work that shows not only how widespread medication errors are, but also discusses interventions that can reduce such errors to improve patient safety.