Kevin Schaefer

Alarmingly, medication errors account for 78 percent of all serious medical errors in an intensive care unit. In the heat of an emergency, decisions have to be made fast, but if the wrong medications are prescribed, your health or the health of a loved one is at risk. The wrong medication can wreck greater havoc than the original illness may have presented.

 Medication errors are often what prompt people to call a medical malpractice lawyer. Chicago is no stranger to medical malpractice.

There are several rules of thumb to prevent medication errors from occurring. Extended physician care work schedules should be eliminated. We ask too much of our doctors, and the stress can play itself out in damaging errors that can result in death. Would you want to ride a Greyhound when the bus driver hasn’t slept in a week?

 Medication orders should be computerized to avoid human error. The current movement to computerize all hospital records should prove useful in this regard. The more streamlined our hospitals are, the fewer errors in medication we will suffer. When everything is on the same page, it’s easier to find the answers.

Pharmacists should have an active participating role in the ICU. Since the first place a patient will be prescribed a medication is often in the ICU, having a pharmacist on hand is every bit as important as having a doctor in the hospital. Pharmacists need to have more active roles in hospital settings, especially on the ICU ward.

 Patients should receive complete consultation regarding any medications they are taking upon admission or discharge to the ICU, and up-to-date medication lists should be maintained.

Researches show that it takes as many as 80 to 100 correctly executed steps to administer a single dose of medication to a critically ill patient in an ICU ward. This allows great room for error if the hospital doesn’t establish a complete and extensive system of checks and balances.