Tài liệu Báo cáo y học: "Clinical review: Medication errors in critical care"

Health care delivery is not infallible. Errors are common in most health care systems and are reported to be the seventh most common cause of death overall [1]. The 1999 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, drew public attention to the importance of patient safety [2]. This was followed with considerable interest by the medical community [3]. However, to date, there is little evidence that patient safety has improved [4]. In the intensive care unit (ICU), on average, patients experience 1.7 errors per day [5] and nearly all suffer a potentially lifethreatening error at some point during their stay [6]. Medication errors account for 78% of serious medical errors in the ICU [7]. The aim of this article is to provide a basic review of medication errors in the ICU as well as strategies to prevent errors and manage their consequences.