Starting clinical practice from the scratch

Mohammed Adel Mohammed Abdel Mohsen, Islam Abdo Mohammed Selim and Fatma Ibrahim Fathy

Starting clinical practice from the scratch

Mohammed Adel Mohammed Abdel Mohsen, Islam Abdo Mohammed Selim and Fatma Ibrahim Fathy

Al-Ahrar Zagazig Teaching Hospital, Egypt

: J Pharm Drug Deliv

Abstract

Aim: To carry an observational study on medication errors in coronary care unit (O-MECCU). Background: Medication errors in coronary care unit were subjected to a prospective observational study to assess the implications of the starting program of clinical pharmacy in Coronary Care Unit (CCU) in a teaching Hospital located in Egypt. Methods: The study observers recorded and categorized the medication errors that were reported by the clinical pharmacists to the physicians during daily rounds concerning 723 patients admitted to the Coronary Care Unit in 300 beds Teaching Hospital in Egypt from October 2014 till December 2015. Continuous additional data is being collected beyond this period for further analysis. Results: The observers detected that the clinically significant drug-drug interactions that influence therapeutic drug plans occurred in (8.71%) of the patients while the percentages of over doses (18.86%), sub-therapeutic doses (23.68%), adverse drug reactions (5.39%), contraindications (3.87%), drug without indications (16.87%), unnecessary antibiotic use (25.03%) and untreated indications (15.09%) from the total number of the patients in the study. In addition, the percentage of patients who have been prescribed with the proper medication regimens without any medication error was (37.62%). Conclusion: The relatively increased percentages of detected medication errors indicate that the presence of the clinical pharmacist is important to decrease the prevalence of medication errors and help other healthcare team members to take better and safer medication therapy management decision.