Reducing medication errors

Medication errors include prescribing errors, dispensing errors, administration errors, monitoring errors and deteriorated medicines. Photo: AFP

An analysis of death rates over an eight year period published in the British Medical Journal last year suggested that medical errors are the third leading cause of deaths in the United States.

However, the researchers cautioned that most errors are not due to incompetent doctors, but rather, represent systemic problems that include poorly co-ordinated or fragmented care, variations in practice that lack accountability, and absence or under-use of safety nets and other protocols.