Why do medication errors occur in veterinary practice?

Abstract

Medication errors are common in veterinary practice. While many of these do not result in harm to a patient, those that do can have serious consequences for the patient and also affect the people involved. Patient safety event reporting provides insight into how and why medication errors occur in practice. Although human error plays a part, there are many contributing factors that make mistakes more likely to happen. This article discusses the types of errors that are reported, common error-producing conditions and specific high-risk situations where errors can have the most serious consequences.