How to Reduce Medication Errors by 82%

By Michael Wong, JD

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, adverse drug events account for nearly 700,000 emergency department visits and 100,000 hospitalizations each year. Hospital pharmacists are uniquely positioned to prevent medication errors in the hospital because of their centralizing function for medications prescribed and dispensed within the hospital setting.

It was with the goal of understanding the role hospital pharmacists can play in preventing medication errors that I interviewed Steven Meisel, PharmD, who is a patient safety expert at the Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI) and the Director of Medication Safety at Fairview Health Services in Minneapolis.

In this clinical education podcast, Dr. Meisel discussed how hospital pharmacists can prevent medication errors. (His transcribed quotes have been lightly edited for readability.)

Here are his five recommendations for accomplishing this:

First, recognize that you may have medication errors

Dr. Meisel’s hospital recognized they had a problem with medication errors related to patients receiving opioids. As he explained:

“I think the first piece of advice is to recognize that there is a problem…