Using Quality Tools to Improve Medication Safety in AL-Herafeen Healthcare Unit in Port Fouad City

Abstract

Background: Drug safety is among the hottest issues of everyday clinical medicine. A medication error is a preventable incident that can trigger improper use of medication or injury to patients. Aim of the study: to identify medication error types, apply quality standards in organizing the workplace, establish a risk management plan and achieve timely, effective and efficient medication use in our healthcare unit especially in the pharmacy, reduce the rate of medication errors especially dispensing and transcription errors and establish a process for identifying and tracking medication errors. Materials and Methods: Sum of improvement quality tools were used such as brainstorming, Pareto chart, control charts, histogram, bar chart, checklist, SWOT analysis, cause-effect diagram, and benchmarking. Results: After following up the medication errors, it was noticed that the percentage of medication errors reached 35% in June 2020, with dispensing errors reached 60% of errors and pharmacy represented 60% of errors in the healthcare unit. It was noticed that the small size of the pharmacy storage area represented 50% of errors. A risk management plan was done and requirements were budgeted for closing an empty space. Conclusion: The percentage of medication errors was increased in Al-Herafeen Healthcare Unit especially in the last month. The most common type was dispensing errors and the majority of errors noticed to be in the pharmacy. The factor that most significantly influences safe medication use in the pharmacy is the limited space and storage area, so it's a priority to find a solution for the narrow space.