Pharmaceutical strategies to minimize the occurrence of errors in prescribing and dispensing medications

Abstract

Used as a resource in the diagnosis, prevention, cure and relief of symptoms of the most diverse diseases, medicines are essential for the effectiveness of many medical treatments throughout history and time. On the other hand, errors related to medication today constitute a serious public health problem and need to be monitored and their occurrence reduced as much as possible, in order to minimize the losses that this serious problem causes daily in health institutions around the world. This research has the general objective of carrying out a survey through a bibliographical review of the most recurrent medication errors in Brazilian hospital pharmacies and describing the most effective procedures and strategies in an attempt to minimize the occurrence of these errors in the prescription or dispensing of these medications. This work consists of a descriptive bibliographic review supported by data extracted from scientific articles and periodicals published in databases of the Virtual Health Library of the Ministry of Health, PubMed, SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) and Google Scholar between the years 2005 and 2023 ; using the keywords Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Care, Medical Prescription, Prescription Error. The theoretical framework of this research is, therefore, about aspects related to medicines and the respective errors that may be committed whether in the prescription or dispensing of medicines, about the functioning of these stages within health institutions and finally about the pharmaceutical procedures or strategies that can be adopted in order to minimize its occurrence. This research demonstrated that the strategies that can be adopted as a resource to minimize the occurrence of this problem involve educational, organizational and technological innovation measures; and also that it is essential that the team acts in an interdisciplinary way in building a safe working environment - where healthcare professionals are able to communicate and perform their duties effectively and interrupt any cycles that lead to errors