Role and Services of Pharmacist in the Prevention of Medication Errors: A Systematic Review

Objective: This systematic review aims to investigate the role and responsibilities of pharmacists in prevention of medication errors. Also to evaluate pharmacist-centered strategies that has an impact in medication error reduction and prevention. Method: A search was conducted through the following databases PubMed Central, Scopus, Trip, Prospero, Medline and Google Scholar using terms related to “medication errors prevention” or “pharmacist-related errors”. Other search terms included “pharmacis t(s)”, “prevention”, “medication error (s)”, “dispensing error (s)”, “drug incidence (s)”, “medication malpractice (s)”. Included studies were prospective and retrospective cohort, case-control and cross-sectional full-text studies published in the last 10 years (2010-2020). The review team screened the articles for inclusion criteria and evaluated the quality of the articles. The PRISMA Guidelines were used to report the selected articles and screening process. Then, the articles was sent to a third independent reviewer for quality assessment using the STROBE Checklist. Results: A clinical pharmacist’s duties are to supervise the medication treatment of admitted patients and to notify the healthcare team when a discrepancy is found. A total of seven reviewed studies highlighted the importance and positive impact of increasing the number of the clinical pharmacist’s interventions. Literature showed that average of 64.9% of medication discrepancies happen during patient discharge, highlighting the necessity of a clinical pharmacist intervention at that stage. The systematic review focused on the significant impact of clinical pharmacist role in preventing errors (studies reported=5); encouraging pharmacist-led education to increase medication error awareness (studies reported =5), incorporating better and innovative pharmacy-related work approaches (studies reported =4); and implementing appropriate and secured policies for medication error reporting (studies reported =1). The screened literature highlighted the significant reduction in the number of medication errors and an increase in medication error identification and awareness. These findings suggest the crucial role of pharmacist in healthcare policies for the prevention of medication errors and patient safety. Conclusion: This systematic review suggests multiple pharmacist-centered strategies that have been implemented in several studies showing the positive impact in the reduction and prevention of medication errors commenced by not only the pharmacist but the rest of the healthcare team.

Prevention of medication errors: a lot to be done in Brazil!

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Medication Errors

Depending on the statistics examined, medication errors are responsible for 44000 to 400000 deaths annually. This chapter examined the role of societal attributes in medication errors. Although several studies have been conducted on medication errors there is still no uniformity in the definitions which makes evaluation of medication errors difficult. Despite the non-uniformity of definitions, all the research articles reviewed agreed that enhanced oral and written communications between health care providers and patients or parents of patients was a step towards the prevention of medication errors. The health literacy level of both health care providers and consumers also contribute to medication errors.