Is there a problem? the evidence of types and causes of medication errors by healthcare workers

Abstract

While medication errors are likely to occur more commonly in older adults, simply on the basis of the probability of the greater use of medication in this population, do these errors constitute a significant problem? This chapter discusses the types of errors that we are likely to see in older people and how those errors occur within the various healthcare settings. Incomplete reporting is a subject that little is known about. This issue, according to the Australian literature, highlights that a minority of doctors and nurses (<20%) are reporting near miss medication errors and only 40% of doctors report errors that resulted in a patient receiving therapeutic intervention. This is in spite of the belief among doctors and nurses in a cross-sectional survey that errors should be reported. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.