Safeguarding the storage of drug products
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Pennsylvania patient safety advisory
- Contributor(s):
- Pennsylvania. Patient Safety Authority. ECRI (Organization) Institute for Safe Medication Practices.
- Publication:
- [Harrisburg, Pa.] : Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, c2010
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Drug Storage -- methods Medication Errors -- prevention & control Pharmacy Service, Hospital Risk Management Health Care Surveys Mandatory Reporting Humans Pennsylvania United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- A well-organized drug-storage system can reduce the risk of medication errors. However, events reported to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority describe how breakdowns in the storage of medications have contributed to drug product mix-ups. More than 200 events have been reported to the Authority from June 2004 through October 2009 that indicate drug storage as a contributing factor to the event. Analysis reveals that nearly 73% of the events reached the patient. The most frequently reported event type was wrong drug (99 [46%] of the events reported). Events occurred in more than 50 different units, indicating that drug storage issues can and do occur throughout a facility. Strategies to address these problems include carefully selecting drugs stocked in each patient care area based upon the needs of each patient care unit and staff expertise, storing individual medications in a separate bin or in a bin with dividers between different products, sequestering chemicals currently used for compounding in a section of the pharmacy, and requiring periodic review of storage areas throughout the organization by a pharmacist or pharmacy technician.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-DC license. (More information)
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101546434 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101546434