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Article: Most medication errors don't hurt hospital patients. (Performance Deficits).
- Article from:
- OB GYN News
- Article date:
- February 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 International Medical News Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Most medication errors that occur in hospitals do not harm patients, Diane Cousins said in a Webcast on medication errors sponsored by U.S. Pharmacopeia.
Overall, 97.6% of medication errors that occurred in hospitals voluntarily reporting to USP's MedMARx medical error database in 2001 were not harmful to patients, Ms. Cousins said.
Most medication errors occur at the time of administration (37%), followed by documentation (26%) and dispensing (21%).
Omission error--failure to administer an ordered dose--was the most common type of error (29% of all errors), followed by improper dose (21%) and prescribing errors (14%).
The most common ...