Systematic Review of Medication Errors: An Overview of the Literature by Clinical Pharmacists

Medication Error (ME) is a preventable event that is caused due to inappropriate medication use, leading to patient misery while the drug is being regulated by healthcare specialists or end-users. The aim of this study is to become acquainted with medication errors and their types: Prescribing, Administering Dispensing, Monitoring errors and the role of clinical pharmacist in preventing medication errors. A thorough analysis of the literature on MEs by referring to electronic databases such as Embase, Pubmed, EBSCO, Web of Science, Science Direct, Google Scholar, Medline, PsycINFoand Scopus. From the study, it was found that medication errors are prevalent throughout the world and are mostly due to human errors that can be avoided. The various types of medication errors taking place in India as well as other countries were identified and the causes of these errors were assessed. The role of clinical pharmacist was found to play an important role in preventing medication errors by providing ward-based clinical pharmacist’s services, educating nursing staff regarding proper drug administration, bar code assisted drug administration, using health information technology (HIT) and proper follow-up. The remedy to reduce ME is to identify the problems and their causes and then implement solutions through clinical pharmacist services rather than accusing, degrading, and gruelling staff. It is also necessary to create a safe work environment by working on the development of a system for better tracking and record keeping of errors and looking at ME as a challenge that has to be conquered. Also all healthcare settings and hospitals need to consider having a clinical pharmacist in their system.