Medication Error Prevention Flashcards

Which ISMP tool helps organizations assess their medication safety practices against best-practice benchmarks?

Answer: ISMP Medication Safety Self Assessment (MSSA)

The ISMP Medication Safety Self Assessment allows facilities to benchmark their practices against ISMP best practices and identify improvement priorities.

The 'five rights' of medication administration (right patient, drug, dose, route, time) are considered by ISMP to be:

Answer: Necessary but not sufficient without systems-based safeguards

ISMP acknowledges the five rights as important checkpoints but emphasizes that system-level safeguards are also essential because humans cannot maintain perfect vigilance.

According to ISMP, which category of staff is most often involved in catching medication errors before they reach patients?

Answer: Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians

Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are a critical last line of defense, intercepting errors through order review and dispensing verification processes.

ISMP recommends avoiding the use of trailing zeros (e.g., 1.0 mg) in medication orders because:

Answer: The decimal point may be missed, causing a tenfold overdose

A trailing zero like '1.0 mg' can be misread as '10 mg' if the decimal point is overlooked, resulting in a tenfold overdose.

Smart infusion pumps with drug libraries contribute to medication error prevention by:

Answer: Alerting nurses when a programmed dose is outside safe limits

Smart pumps with dose-error reduction software alert nurses when entered doses exceed safe limits defined in the drug library, acting as a final safety check.

Which ISMP initiative specifically addresses medication errors that occur during care transitions such as hospital discharge?

Answer: Medication reconciliation best practices

ISMP's medication reconciliation best practices address the high-risk transition points where incomplete or inaccurate medication lists cause errors.