Look-alike medicines, unclear communication and distractions during administration – medication errors may occur for many different reasons. They all have in common that they are unintended mistakes in the drug treatment process that may or may not lead to patient harm. In this episode Ghita Benabdallah and Loubna Alj from the national pharmacovigilance centre of Morocco, and Alem Zekarias from Uppsala Monitoring Centre discuss how we can prevent medication errors from occurring – and, when they do occur, make sure that they are reported as such. 

Tune in to find out:

• What are the most common causes for medication errors?
• How should strategies for preventing medication errors be devised? 
• How does the assessment of suspected medication error reports differ from “regular” ADR signal assessment?
• What can be done to encourage healthcare professionals to report medication errors?

Want to know more?

• In March 2024, WHO published this systematic review of the global burden of preventable medication-related harm in healthcare.
• According to this 2021 article in BMJ, an estimated 237 million medication errors occur in England every year. Avoidable adverse drug events were calculated to cost the National Health Service an annual sum of GBP 98 462 582 per year, consuming 181 626 bed-days, and causing/contributing to 1708 deaths. 
• This 2012 meta-analysis confirmed what had been suggested in several observational studies: that preventable adverse drug reactions are a significant healthcare burden.
• The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has a dedicated webpage with recommendations, guidelines, legal requirements and a good practice guide on medication errors. 

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About UMC
Read more about Uppsala Monitoring Centre and how we work to advance medicines safety.