Medication Errors and Root Causes Analysis: Emerging Views and Practices in King Saud Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Dalal S. Al-Dosaari
King Saud Medical City, Ministry of Health, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Ibrahim A. Al-Zaagi
King Saud Medical City, Ministry of Health, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Sara O. Salem
Drug Poisoning and Information Center, King Saud Medical City, Ministry of Health, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Abdullah Mohammed Al-Bedah
National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Ministry of Health, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Naseem Akhtar Qureshi *
National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Ministry of Health, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Background: Medication errors (MEs) are associated with significant morbidity and mortality, and huge cost worldwide. Medication errors are multifactorial and present in different forms with variable severity. Many tools are developed to analyze MEs for knowing the main etiological factor and preventing their occurrence.
Objective: This mini-review narratively describes the emerging views and practices concerning MEs and root cause analysis (RCA) in King Saud Medical City (KSMC) supported by relevant international literature.
Methods: Electronic searches of PubMed and Google Scholar using keywords were made to identify relevant articles published in English literature of the past 10 years. For illustrative purpose, three case scenarios of MEs with step-wise process of RCA were presented in this research.
Results: A number of programs, orientation sessions, policies and procedures, ME reporting system, guidelines and action plan were developed to identify and prevent MEs, and RCA of MEs was the most important assessment tool to recognize the main causes underlying MEs in KSMC.
Conclusion: Several programs, developed and implemented in KSMC over the past few years match with international evidence-based data, and RCA is an effective tool to detect, analyze and prevent MEs in this medical city. This mini-review calls for further research on MEs and root cause analysis in other hospitals of Saudi Arabia.
Keywords: Medication errors, root cause analysis, prevention, medication error reporting system