MEDICATION ASSOCIATED HARM

Abstract

Every person around the world will, at some point in his life, use medicines to prevent or treat his illness. However, treatments and medicines do sometimes cause serious harm. Sometimes mistakes committed by health workers and/or patients can result in severe harm. A medication error is ‘any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the healthcare professional, patient, or consumer; such events may be related to professional practice, health care products, procedures and systems, including prescribing, order communication, product labelling, packaging and nomenclature, compounding, dispensing, distribution, administration, education, monitoring, and use.

Among other reasons, medication errors can be caused by poor training of health workers. Inappropriately trained doctors at home and doctors coming from less developed foreign countries are incompatible blood in the veins of our health system. We should develop a holistic system of audit and accountability to monitor health professional education, training and registration so that a high quality health workforce is provided. Professional as well as ethical grooming through continuous professional development (CPD) activities should be part of a doctor’s career. Basic ethical principle of ‘do no harm’ should be deeply ingrained into the minds of health providers during training and during work.

Fortunately, all medication errors are potentially avoidable. Paying attention to health system inefficiencies is important as most harm arises from system failures. Improving the way care is organized and coordinated and how prescriptions are written as well as how patients are advised to consume medications can enormously curtail cases of medication related harm. This requires putting systems and procedures in place to ensure that the right patient receives the right medication at the right dose via the right route at the right time. An organizational culture that routinely implements best practices and that avoids