Table 4 Operational definitions

To reduce the medication error to less than 1 per 100 administrated medication doses

Medication errors

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 health care professional, patient, or consumer.

Medication errors are typically viewed as related to administration of a medication, but they can also include errors in ordering or delivering medication.

The medication dose must actually reach the patient. If the incorrect dose is discovered and corrected before administration to the patient, no error occurs.

Prescribing error: it includes mistakes made by the physician when ordering a medication; incorrect drug selection, route, the frequent of administration,, dosage form, or instructions for use of a drug product.

Dispensing error: The deviations from the physician’s order, made by staff in the pharmacy when distributing medications to nursing units or to patients in an ambulatory setting.

Administration error: The deviating from the physician’s order as written in the patient’s chart.

Monitoring error: it includes the failure to review a prescribed therapeutic plan for appropriateness and detection of problems, or weakness to use appropriate clinical or laboratory data for adequate assessment of patient response to prescribed therapy.