How many medication errors occur? Answers are varied; observational studies with inconsistent study methods have reported error rates from ranging from 3% to 72% of medications administered in intensive care units.   A recently published systematic review of 91 studies attempted to overcome the difficulty of methodological inconsistencies, to determine the prevalence of medication administration errors. The median medication error rate was ~20% when including timing errors, and 8% when timing errors were excluded. The most common administration errors were wrong time, omission and wrong dosage. Medication administration errors were also more common with IV dosages; up to 53% of IV medications had errors, excluding timing errors. Clearly, more research needs to be done to determine how to reduce the risk of medication errors.

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