Abstract:

Aim: The main objectives of creating an effective safety culture in health institutions is to reduce medical errors. One of the most common types of medical errors worldwide is medication errors and these errors are a major threat to patient safety. The aim of this study is to evaluate medication related events in a university hospital according to the World Health Organization International Classification for Patient Safety and degree of harm. Material and Method: The universe of the research consists of medication related events notifications made on a quality management system between 01.01.2015 and 30.06.2017 in a university hospital located on the Asian side of Istanbul. Results: According to the findings of the study, a total of 369 medication related events were made, and the rate of medication related events notifications among all reports was 24.67%. According to the World Health Organization classification system it was determined to 27.10% of these events are prescribing, 20.87% are preparation/dispensing, 20.33% monitoring, 19.24% administration and 10.03% storage. It was found that 56.91% of the errors did not harm the patient, 24.39% of them caused mild harm, 18.43% of them caused moderate harm and 0.27% of them caused severe harm. Conclusion: When the results are evaluated, it is found that medication related events mostly occurred during the prescribing and preparation/dispensing stages and most of the errors did not harm the patient. The errors in these categories are important for finding improvement opportunities on behalf of the institution, since they are events that do not reach the patient. It is possible to reduce medication errors in the long term by taking improvement action.

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