Abstract

Gundramy Reddy Sravani*, Dudu Sravani, M. Rameela, Punnamaraju Kali Prasanna, Dudekula. Seetharambabu and T. S. Durga Prasad

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Clinical Pharmacists involvement in patient care has improved the quality of care and reduced medication errors. However, this has required a lot of work that could not have been accomplished without documentation of interventions. Several means of documenting errors have been proposed in the literature but without a consistent comprehensive process. As per the recommendations of American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP), we sought to analyze interventions by monitoring prescribing and dispensing errors. Objectives: Type of medication errors, its severity and role of clinical pharmacist intervention in detection and prevention of medication errors were evaluated in this study. Methods: A Cross sectional interventional study carried out over a period of 6 months monitoring 1200 prescriptions in outpatient pharmacy department at a tertiary care teaching hospital. Results: During this study period, we found 136 prescriptions with medication errors. Of the 136 medication errors, 27.94% (38) were prescribing errors, and 72.05% (98) were dispensing errors. The most type of prescribing error was Untreated Indication 52.63% (20).The most type of dispensing error identified was Dispensing Incorrect drug 24.48% (24) and Dispensing Drug in Excess 24.48% (24). Majority of interventions in our study were to Supply Required Drug 68(50%). The acceptance of our interventions were found to be 118 (86.6%). Conclusion: Clinical pharmacists interventions can effectively prevent these errors. The types of errors indicate the need for continuous education and implementation of clinical pharmacist's interventions.