Where are we in patient safety in the ED in Turkey?

Near misses and unsafe conditions have become more serious for patients in emergency departments (EDs). We aimed to search the near misses and unsafe conditions that occurred in an ED to improve patient safety.This was a retrospective analysis of a 10-year observational period from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2016. We gained access to the adverse event notification forms (AENFs) sent to the hospital quality department from the ED. Patient age, sex, and date of presentation were recorded. The near misses and unsafe conditions were classified into 7 types: medication errors, falls, management errors, penetrative-sharp tool injuries, incidents due to institution security, incidents due to medical equipment, and forensic events. The outcome of these events was recorded.A total of 220 AENF were reported from 294,673 ED visits. The median age of the 166 patients was 60 (21-95) years. Of these, 57.1% of the patients were females and 47.9% were males. The most commonly reported events were medication errors (32.7%) and management errors (27.3%). The median age of falling patients was 67.5 years. The nurse-patient ratio between 2007 to 2011 and 2011 to 2016 were 1/10 and 1/7, respectively. We found that when this ratio increased, the adverse events results were less significant (P < .003).This was the 1st study investigating the adverse events in ED in Turkey. The reporting ratio of 0.07% for the total ED visits was too low. This showed that adverse events were under-reported.

Epidemiology of and Risk Factors for Harmful Anti-Infective Medication Errors in a Pediatric Hospital.

BACKGROUND: Literature is limited on pediatric anti-infective medication errors. There is a pressing need for additional research, as studies suggest high rates of overall pediatric medication errors and known harmful side effect profiles for anti-infective medications with narrow dosing ranges. This study aimed to identify risk factors related to harmful anti-infective medication errors in pediatric patients. METHODS: A retrospective chart review of all voluntary error reports involving anti-infective medication errors and pediatric patients (0 to < 22 years old) reported June 2014-December 2015 was conducted. Error reports were generated using the hospital's general error reporting system and a pharmacy-based patient surveillance reporting system and were stratified based on the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCC MERP) Medication Error Index. Harmful errors were compared to nonharmful errors using Fisher's exact test. RESULTS: Of 338 anti-infective medication-related error reports, 13.6% of voluntarily reported errors reached the patient and 1.5% resulted in harm to the patient and required additional monitoring, interventions, and/or prolonged hospitalization. Antibacterials comprised 93.8% of all error reports, with beta-lactams (63.0%), macrolides (6.5%) and glycopeptides (6.2%) the most common classes. When using Fisher's exact test to compare harmful and nonharmful medication errors, the risk factor significantly associated with harmful errors was anti-infective class (p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: Voluntarily reported anti-infective medication errors within the pediatric patient population often reached the patient, and specific anti-infective medications are potentially of higher risk. Further investigation and additional quality and patient safety strategies may be needed for these higher-risk profile medications.

Period prevalence and reporting rate of medication errors among nurses in Iran: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

AIMS: To estimate the 1-year period prevalence of medication errors and the reporting rate to nurse managers among nurses working in hospitals in Iran. BACKGROUND: Medication errors are one of the main factors affecting the quality of hospital services and reducing patient safety in health care systems. METHOD: A literature search from Iranian and international scientific databases was developed to find relevant studies. Meta-regression was used to identify which characteristics may have a confounding effect on the pooled prevalence estimates. RESULTS: Based on the final 22 studies with 3556 samples, the overall estimated 1-year period prevalence of medication errors and its reporting rate to nurse managers among nurses were 53% (95% confidence interval, 41%-60%) and 36% (95% confidence interval, 23%-50%), respectively. The meta-regression analyses indicated that the sex (female/male) ratio was a statistically significant predictor of the prevalence of medication errors (p < .05), but not of the prevalence of reporting medication errors to nurse managers. CONCLUSION: The period prevalence of medication errors among nurses working in hospitals was high in Iran, whereas its reporting rate to nurse managers was low. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Continuous training programmes are required to reduce and prevent medication errors among nursing staff and to improve the reporting rate to nurse managers in in Iran.

Use of failure mode effect analysis (FMEA) to improve medication management process.

Purpose Medication management is a complex process, at high risk of error with life threatening consequences. The focus should be on devising strategies to avoid errors and make the process self-reliable by ensuring prevention of errors and/or error detection at subsequent stages. The purpose of this paper is to use failure mode effect analysis (FMEA), a systematic proactive tool, to identify the likelihood and the causes for the process to fail at various steps and prioritise them to devise risk reduction strategies to improve patient safety. Design/methodology/approach The study was designed as an observational analytical study of medication management process in the inpatient area of a multi-speciality hospital in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. A team was made to study the complex process of medication management in the hospital. FMEA tool was used. Corrective actions were developed based on the prioritised failure modes which were implemented and monitored. Findings The percentage distribution of medication errors as per the observation made by the team was found to be maximum of transcription errors (37 per cent) followed by administration errors (29 per cent) indicating the need to identify the causes and effects of their occurrence. In all, 11 failure modes were identified out of which major five were prioritised based on the risk priority number (RPN). The process was repeated after corrective actions were taken which resulted in about 40 per cent (average) and around 60 per cent reduction in the RPN of prioritised failure modes. Research limitations/implications FMEA is a time consuming process and requires a multidisciplinary team which has good understanding of the process being analysed. FMEA only helps in identifying the possibilities of a process to fail, it does not eliminate them, additional efforts are required to develop action plans and implement them. Frank discussion and agreement among the team members is required not only for successfully conducing FMEA but also for implementing the corrective actions. Practical implications FMEA is an effective proactive risk-assessment tool and is a continuous process which can be continued in phases. The corrective actions taken resulted in reduction in RPN, subjected to further evaluation and usage by others depending on the facility type. Originality/value The application of the tool helped the hospital in identifying failures in medication management process, thereby prioritising and correcting them leading to improvement.

Adding value through pharmacy validation: a safety and cost perspective.

RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: Prescribing errors (PE) are frequent, cause significant harm to patients and prove costly. Few studies demonstrate the impact of pharmacist interventions. The objectives of this study were to characterize the severity and cost of the potential outcome of PE that pharmacists can prevent and to develop an economic analysis. METHOD: We performed a non-randomized, prospective, observational study of all prescriptions made to adult patients admitted to a 1300-bed tertiary teaching hospital in Madrid (Spain) by means of a computerized physician order entry tool combined with a clinical decision support system. We analysed PE intercepted through the pharmacist validation process between January and June 2013. An independent team determined the severity of the potential adverse drug event (ADE) and the probability of causing an ADE (PAE). We estimated the cost avoidance and performed an economic analysis. A kappa statistic was used to verify inter-observer agreement. RESULTS: 484 PE were intercepted: 36.2% of PE were classified as being of minor severity, 59.1% as moderate and 4.7% as serious. The most common type of moderate-serious PE found was excessive dose (30%, 94/309), followed by insufficient dose (20%, 62/309), and omission (19%, 58/309). The most frequent families of drugs involved in moderate-serious PE were antineoplastic agents (22.3%, 69/309) and antimicrobials (17.2%, 53/309). The PAE was higher than 40% in 49% of PE. We estimated a cost avoidance of €291,422 and a return on investment of €1.7 for each €1 spent on a pharmacist's salary. The overall inter-rater agreement for the participants was moderate for severity (κ = 0.57; P <0.005) and strong for the PAE (κ = 0.77; P <0.005). CONCLUSIONS: Pharmacists add important value in preventing PE, and their interventions are financially beneficial for the institution.

Learning from no-fault treatment injury claims to improve the safety of older patients.

New Zealand's treatment injury compensation claims data set provides an uncommon no-fault perspective of patient safety incidents. Analysis of primary care claims data confirmed medication as the leading threat to the safety of older patients in primary care and drew particular attention to the threat posed by antibiotics. For most injuries there was no suggestion of error. The no-fault perspective reveals the greatest threat to the safety of older patients in primary care to be, not error, but the risk posed by treatment itself. To improve patients' safety, in addition to reducing error, clinicians need to reduce patients' exposure to treatment risk, where appropriate.

What are incident reports telling us? A comparative study at two Australian hospitals of medication errors identified at audit, detected by staff and reported to an incident system.

OBJECTIVES: To (i) compare medication errors identified at audit and observation with medication incident reports; (ii) identify differences between two hospitals in incident report frequency and medication error rates; (iii) identify prescribing error detection rates by staff. DESIGN: Audit of 3291 patient records at two hospitals to identify prescribing errors and evidence of their detection by staff. Medication administration errors were identified from a direct observational study of 180 nurses administering 7451 medications. Severity of errors was classified. Those likely to lead to patient harm were categorized as 'clinically important'. SETTING: Two major academic teaching hospitals in Sydney, Australia. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Rates of medication errors identified from audit and from direct observation were compared with reported medication incident reports. RESULTS: A total of 12 567 prescribing errors were identified at audit. Of these 1.2/1000 errors (95% CI: 0.6-1.8) had incident reports. Clinically important prescribing errors (n = 539) were detected by staff at a rate of 218.9/1000 (95% CI: 184.0-253.8), but only 13.0/1000 (95% CI: 3.4-22.5) were reported. 78.1% (n = 421) of clinically important prescribing errors were not detected. A total of 2043 drug administrations (27.4%; 95% CI: 26.4-28.4%) contained ≥ 1 errors; none had an incident report. Hospital A had a higher frequency of incident reports than Hospital B, but a lower rate of errors at audit. CONCLUSIONS: Prescribing errors with the potential to cause harm frequently go undetected. Reported incidents do not reflect the profile of medication errors which occur in hospitals or the underlying rates. This demonstrates the inaccuracy of using incident frequency to compare patient risk or quality performance within or across hospitals. New approaches including data mining of electronic clinical information systems are required to support more effective medication error detection and mitigation.

[Developing a terminology in the French language for clinical practice and research in drug safety]. / Iatrogénie médicamenteuse : contribution à l'uniformisation de la terminologie en langue française pour la pratique de soins et la recherche clinique.

While several attempts have been made to clarify the English terminology of drug-related iatrogeny, a consensus has still not been reached in the French language. We set up a multidisciplinary task force to propose a terminology that differs from the one used in pharmacovigilance and risk management. We prefer the term "adverse drug event" (ADE) over "adverse drug reaction", and recommend avoiding the term "adverse event", which is too general. We propose to classify ADEs as "direct drug effect" or "drug involvement in a multifactorial pathological condition", taking into account the close relationship commonly found between drug and non-drug etiologies of a pathology. The consistent association between the notions "error" and "preventability" is also questionable, and we suggest assessing the "ameliorability" of ADEs rather than their "preventability". "Misuse" (i.e., the non-respect by the patient of the drug label) must be distinguished from "off-label use or substance abuse".

Frequency, types, and direct related costs of medication errors in an academic nephrology ward in Iran.

Medication errors are ongoing problems among hospitalized patients especially those with multiple co-morbidities and polypharmacy such as patients with renal diseases. This study evaluated the frequency, types and direct related cost of medication errors in nephrology ward and the role played by clinical pharmacists. During this study, clinical pharmacists detected, managed, and recorded the medication errors. Prescribing errors including inappropriate drug, dose, or treatment durations were gathered. To assess transcription errors, the equivalence of nursery charts and physician's orders were evaluated. Administration errors were assessed by observing drugs' preparation, storage, and administration by nurses. The changes in medications costs after implementing clinical pharmacists' interventions were compared with the calculated medications costs if the medication errors were continued up to patients' discharge time. More than 85% of patients experienced medication error. The rate of medication errors was 3.5 errors per patient and 0.18 errors per ordered medication. More than 95% of medication errors occurred at prescription nodes. Most common prescribing errors were omission (26.9%) or unauthorized drugs (18.3%) and low drug dosage or frequency (17.3%). Most of the medication errors happened on cardiovascular drugs (24%) followed by vitamins and electrolytes (22.1%) and antimicrobials (18.5%). The number of medication errors was correlated with the number of ordered medications and length of hospital stay. Clinical pharmacists' interventions decreased patients' direct medication costs by 4.3%. About 22% of medication errors led to patients' harm. In conclusion, clinical pharmacists' contributions in nephrology wards were of value to prevent medication errors and to reduce medications cost.

Consideration of ICD-9 code-derived disease-specific safety indicators in CKD.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality patient safety indicators track adverse safety events in hospitalized patients but overlook safety incidents specific to CKD. This study considers candidate CKD-pertinent patient safety indicators and compares them with the Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality patient safety indicators. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS: Using a national Veterans Health Administration database of hospitalized veterans from fiscal year 2005, 247,160 hospitalized veterans with prehospitalization measures of renal function were retrospectively examined for proposed CKD patient safety indicators versus Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality patient safety indicators using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision diagnosis codes. Candidate CKD-pertinent patient safety indicators included in-hospital acute kidney failure; in-hospital congestive heart failure (and related diagnostic codes); electrolyte disturbances; and medication errors, poisoning, and intoxication. Patients with a prehospital estimated GFR<60 ml/min per 1.73 m(2) (CKD group) were compared with a non-CKD group. For CKD patient safety indicators, hospitalizations were excluded if the admitting condition was a potential cause of the secondary condition. Regression methods were used to present adjusted rates in study groups of interest. RESULTS: The CKD patient safety indicators were generally more common than the Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality patient safety indicators in all groups, tended to occur in different patients than those patients who experienced Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality patient safety indicators, and were more common in the CKD group than the non-CKD group, except for hypoglycemia, hypokalemia, and hyponatremia. The adjusted composite CKD patient safety indicators rate (per 1000 patient-hospitalizations) was 398.0 (95% confidence interval, 391.2 to 405.0) for patients in the CKD group and 250.0 (95% confidence interval, 247.4 to 252.7) for patients in the non-CKD group. The prevalence ratio of CKD patient safety indicators to Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality patient safety indicators was 23.4 (95% confidence interval, 21.9 to 25.0). CONCLUSION: The candidate CKD patient safety indicators that occur in hospitalized patients are distinct from the Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality patient safety indicators and tend to be more common in CKD than non-CKD patients. These measures have the potential to serve as sentinel tools for identifying patients with CKD who warrant examination for disease-pertinent safety events.

A medication safety model: a case study in Thai hospital.

Reaching zero defects is vital in medication service. Medication error can be reduced if the causes are recognized. The purpose of this study is to search for a conceptual framework of the causes of medication error in Thailand and to examine relationship between these factors and its importance. The study was carried out upon an in-depth case study and survey of hospital personals who were involved in the drug use process. The structured survey was based on Emergency Care Research Institute (ECRI) (2008) questionnaires focusing on the important factors that affect the medication safety. Additional questionnaires included content to the context of Thailand's private hospital, validated by five-hospital qualified experts. By correlation Pearson analysis, the result revealed 14 important factors showing a linear relationship with drug administration error except the medication reconciliation. By independent sample t-test, the administration error in the hospital was significantly related to external impact. The multiple regression analysis of the detail of medication administration also indicated the patient identification before administration of medication, detection of the risk of medication adverse effects and assurance of medication administration at the right time, dosage and route were statistically significant at 0.05 level. The major implication of the study is to propose a medication safety model in a Thai private hospital.

Medication error reporting in a university teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia.

OBJECTIVES: Medication errors are common in the hospital setting. Little is known about these errors in Saudi Arabia. The objective of the current study was to explore the rate of reporting medication errors and factors associated with the root causes of these errors in a large tertiary teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia. METHODS: This study was conducted at the university teaching hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. All occurrence/variant reports related to medication errors were documented on a hospital Web-based medication error form that was designed to capture information on all aspects. Medication error reports were reviewed and reported at quarterly intervals over a 1-year period (November 2009 to October 2010). RESULTS: The medication error rate over the 1-year study period was 0.4% (949 medication errors for 240,000 prescriptions). During this period, 14 (1.5%) errors were categorized as resulting in any harm to the patient (all category E). Medication errors were reported predominantly at the prescribing stage of the medication process (89%). The most common types of errors were prescribing (44%) and improper dose/quantity (31%). Antibiotics (12%), antihypertensive agents (10%), and oral hypoglycemic agents (8%) were the pharmacological classes of medication most commonly involved with errors. Nonspecific performance deficit (43%), knowledge deficit (28%), and illegible or unclear handwriting (17%) were the main reported causes of error. CONCLUSIONS: Medication errors are underreported in a tertiary teaching hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Future studies should evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to stimulate medication errors reporting by health-care providers.

An assessment of the rate, types and severity of prescribing errors in a tertiary hospital in southwestern Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: Accurate medication prescribing is an important process in ensuring the best possible outcomes in patient care. Worldwide literature is replete with studies reporting high prevalence of prescribing error which are the most common type of avoidable medication errors and hence are an important target for improvement. OBJECTIVES: This study assessed types and prevalence of prescribing errors, their clinical significance, when in the prescribing process they occurred and the medications commonly associated with prescribing errors. METHODS: A retrospective review of 2010 in-patients' records from medical and paediatric specialties of a tertiary hospital in South West Nigeria was undertaken. Prescriptions that met the standard as enumerated in the Nigeria Standard Treatment Guideline (STG) were assessed. Prescription error rates for potentially clinically serious and total errors were determined. RESULTS: The total prescribing error rate was 40.9% (95% CI 37.8 to 41.4) with 1.3% (95% CI -1.1 to 3.7) being clinically serious. Omitting to write an ending date or duration for therapy and unsafe abbreviations were the most common errors. Prescriptions involving antimicrobials produced the bulk of errant prescriptions. CONCLUSION: Prescribing errors were found to be common. There was poor compliance with the Nigeria Standard Treatment Guidelines which outline the essential elements of a prescription. Continuing prescriber education on proper prescription writing and rational drug use is recommended as a way to reduce prescribing errors.

Categorising paediatric prescribing errors by junior doctors through prescribing competency assessment: does assessment reflect actual practice?

PURPOSE: It is recognised that paediatric prescribing errors are prevalent, and that most are made by junior doctors; however, detecting errors in order to demonstrate actual error rates can be difficult. There is evidence to suggest that dosing errors are the most common type of prescribing error in practice, but there has been little research on whether prescribing assessments are an effective reflection of actual practice.This article aims to determine if prescribing error types in a paediatric prescribing competency assessment reflects error types seen in actual practice. METHODS: This study was conducted in Royal Manchester Children's Hospital (RMCH) and the participants were junior doctors working at RMCH in 2010-2011. The intervention was a prescribing competency assessment package at RMCH.The main outcome measurement was the category and rate of prescribing errors. Results were taken from the junior doctors' prescribing competency assessment. The assessment papers were analysed for errors and the errors were then broken down into pre-defined categories. RESULTS: Rates of prescribing errors in the competency assessment are higher than published results shown in practice (23.1 %). The most common type of prescribing error (incorrect calculation of dose) reflects results seen in actual practice. CONCLUSION: The types of prescribing errors made in the competency assessment are reflective of errors made in actual practice. Prescribing teaching can be tailored according to the types of errors noted; and the prescribing competency package as a whole can be used to educate junior doctors on good prescribing practice and reduce prescribing errors.

Evaluation of clinical pharmacist's interventions in an infectious diseases ward and impact on patient's direct medication cost.

BACKGROUND: A clinical pharmacist is a key member of the antimicrobial multidisciplinary team involved in patients' pharmacotherapy monitoring. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency and type of medication errors, the type of clinical pharmacy interventions, acceptance of pharmacist interventions by health-care provider team, nursing staff satisfaction with clinical pharmacy services, and the probable impact of clinical pharmacy interventions on decreasing direct medication costs at an infectious diseases ward in Iran. METHODS: All clinical pharmacist interventions such as preventing medication errors were recorded in a previously designed pharmacotherapy monitoring forms. Direct medication cost of patients admitted during the study period was compared with that of subjects hospitalized at the same ward during the year before the intervention period to determine the impact of clinical pharmacy interventions on direct medication costs. RESULTS: The 3 most frequent medication error types were incorrect dose (35.5%), omission error (24.3%), and incorrect medication (14.3%). The mean number of clinical pharmacist intervention per patient was 3.2. Forty percent of clinical pharmacists' interventions are moderate to major clinical significant. Thirty nine percent of clinical pharmacist's interventions had moderate to major financial benefits in present study. The direct medication cost per patient was decreased about 3.8% following clinical pharmacist's interventions. CONCLUSION: Our data demonstrated that incorrect dose was the most frequent medication error in the infectious diseases ward. Major portion of clinical pharmacist interventions were accepted by physicians and nursing staff. Clinical pharmacist interventions non-significantly decreased the direct medication cost of patients.

Medication problems are frequent and often serious in a Danish emergency department and may be discovered by clinical pharmacists.

INTRODUCTION: Transferring a patient from one health-care sector to another implies a risk of medication errors. It is of interest to evaluate whether a specialist in clinical pharmacy is beneficial for the patients in the emergency departments (ED). The aim of the present study was to report the incidence, categories and seriousness of medication problems discovered by clinical pharmacists in an ED and to evaluate if it is possible for pharmacists to identify those groups of patients who are most at risk of medication problems. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A pharmacist reviewed the patient files in the ED. If the pharmacists provided any kind of recommendations, a note was made describing the problem and a suggestion for a solution. After the study period, two medical specialists reviewed the files and rated the suggestions according to four levels of importance. RESULTS: A total of 1,696 patient files were reviewed after excluding patients who had received no medication. A total of 420 pharmacist notes were written, corresponding to 25% of all the included admissions. 47% of the pharmaceutical suggestions were considered serious. Increasing age and one drug as opposed to 2-9 drugs were associated with serious recommendations. In the multivariate analysis, only age above 70 years remained of significance for the identification of patients with a risk of a serious medication problem. CONCLUSION: A considerable amount of serious pharmaceutical problems were found in the ED. These problems had not been observed by the physicians and they were especially prevalent among the elderly and patients who were only prescribed a single drug. FUNDING: The Amgros research foundation financed salaries for the independent specialists who reviewed the patient files. TRIAL REGISTRATION: not relevant.

How should medication errors be defined? Development and test of a definition.

AIMS: Definitions of medication errors vary widely in the literature, and prevalence from 2-75% in part because of this lack of consensus. Thus, clarification of the concept is urgently needed. The objective was to develop a clear-cut definition of medication errors and specify relevant error types in the medication process. METHODS: Based on existing taxonomy and through a modified Delphi-process consensus of definition and error types were reached among Danish experts appointed by 13 healthcare organisations and the project group. The experts prioritised five definitions of medication errors and score the relevance of 76 error types. Based on explicit criteria, the project group settled non-consensus cases. RESULTS: The panel consisted of 12 physicians, seven pharmacists, and six nurses. Consensus was reached for the definition "An error in the stages of the medication process - ordering, dispensing, administering and monitoring the effect - causing harm or implying a risk of harming the patient". Moreover, consensus for 60 of 76 error types was achieved. Applied to a historic dataset the definition reduced the number of medication errors from 34% to 7%. CONCLUSIONS: Experts deemed a definition using harm or risk of harm as cut-off point as the most appropriate in Danish hospital settings. In addition, they agreed on a list of 60 error types covering the medication process. Interestingly, a substantial lower occurrence of medication errors was found when applied to historic data. The definition is in accordance with international taxonomy, thus is assumed to be applicable to modern healthcare settings abroad.

[HaiPro--what was learned from patient safety incidents in Finnish health care units in 2007 to 2009?]. / HaiPro--millaisista vaaratapahtumista terveyden- huollon yksiköissä opittiin vuosina 2007-2009?

Reports of the HaiPro reporting system are described and the role of reporting procedure aiming at internal development of the units and the possibilities of national development and monitoring of patient safety are discussed. The study material consisted of 64,405 reports of patient safety incidents accumulated from May 5, 2007 to December 31, 2009 to the HaiPro database from 36 user organizations. Of the reported incidents, 51% were associated with medicaments and the process of medication. The most common incidents were errors in registration, dispensing and administration of the drugs.

Medication error prevalence.

PURPOSE: Healthcare risk epidemiology identifies medication error as the commonest cause of adverse effects on patients. Medication error can occur at any phase of the complex medication process so prevalence rates need to be estimated at each drug treatment phase: prescription, transcription and administration along with their clinical repercussions. This paper aims to investigate this issue. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Medication errors were recorded on an ad hoc sheet and staff were observed handling medications. Recorded errors were later classified and their clinical repercussions determined by experts. FINDINGS: In total 757 inpatients and 5466 drug prescriptions were studied. The prescription error rate was 4.79 percent (95 percent CI 4.21-5.36). The most frequent error in this phase was failing to observe international prescribing standards. The highest error rate was found in transcription (14.61 percent, 95 percent CI 13.67-15.54). Almost 1900 dose administrations were observed. There was a 9.32 percent error rate (95 percent CI 7.98-10.67). The commonest error in this phase was omission. Most were transcription errors, which were detected before harm wasdone. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: The dispensation phase is absent. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Errors can be reduced if they are understood. Education and training based on the study's findings can reduce medication errors. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The paper highlights ways to reduce errors in the medication process.