Medication Error Risks Involving the Elderly
When it comes to medication errors, some populations are more vulnerable than others. Take the elderly, for example. A U.S. Pharmacopeia study confirms that older people are more commonly affected by medication errors than other age groups.
This is true for a few reasons. Because the elderly are more likely to be taking multiple medications – sometimes prescribed by multiple doctors – they are more susceptible to harmful drug interactions. Elderly people are also more trusting, and so they are less likely to question health care providers or the medications they are taking. Also, physical ailments such as decreased mental capacity or vision difficulties make it more difficult for an elderly person to catch a mistake.
Ironically, some studies show that elderly patients may be at greater risk of falling victim to medication errors when they are confined in a hospital or nursing home. Many factors come into play that increase the risk of a medication error within a health-care facility, including over-burdened nurses, pharmacists, and doctors.
In a hospital setting, medication errors can happen at any step of the “delivery” process, the path a medication follows from the moment a physician writes a prescription to the time it is administered to a patient. Hospital medication errors are fairly equally distributed along the delivery process:
- Physician error – A doctor writes the wrong prescription;
- Hospital pharmacy error – Pharmacists or supporting staff either transcribe the prescription or they prepare the drug incorrectly;
- Bedside administration error – Nurses make a mistake administering the medicine.
Most medication errors in nursing homes occur due to medication timing issues. A medication is either given too often, not frequently enough or not at all. Timing is often a critical issue for the elderly, who may depend on the right drug, in the right dose, at the right time to sustain their life.
Another big concern at nursing homes that drives up the rate of medication error is staff issues. It is a fact that many nursing homes are not only downsizing staff due to financial constraints, but are also depending more and more on the remaining employees to take on additional responsibilities. That results in an over-burdened staff who, in many cases, is under-qualified to do some of the extra work, such as administer meds to elderly patients. Adding to the problem is a nationwide shortage of qualified nurses.
It would be short-sighted to simply blame the increasing medication error risk on individual carelessness of pharmacists, nurses, and other health-care workers. In fact, the root cause of medication errors among the elderly is a systemic problem that cuts to health-care managers. As long as profit rides above patient safety, medication errors will only increase.
