Approximately two and a half million drug prescriptions in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service are written in an average UK hospital serving almost 7000 patients daily. Erroneous medications may be prescribed at any stage of the medication cycle, but it is in the prescribing stage that inaccurate medication histories might result in harmful consequences.
A thorough medication history can be used to determine treatment eligibility and formulate a plan for future treatment. As much as it’s relevant, you need to ensure that all of the patients’ pharmacotherapy records are accurate and up-to-date, ensuring their progress and that of the hospital and clinic are practical and effective.
Histories that account for both sides of a prescribed medication’s history are standard, along with information on allergies or sensitivities to drugs or medicaments (or excipients). Says Dr. Matt Anderson a healthcare writer at best dissertation help. Additionally, the recording of recently stopped medications and antimicrobials or corticosteroids that the patient has taken in the last 30 days is also typical.
A diagnostic assessment may also reveal problems with medication adherence and determine other medications the patient utilizes (e.g., OTC drugs, herbal medicines, or medications from licensed clinics). Patients should also be informed to confirm the significance of previous allergic reactions or medication intolerances.
The symmetry of Medication History
The following information must be taken while you pen down your patient’s medication history (Try to use the word “medicine” rather than “drugs” while taking the history),
- The recommended formulations of drugs (e.g., modified-release tablets), doses, ways of administering them (e.g., orally, Trans dermally, inhaled), frequencies, and duration of treatment.
- Drugs that were recently in use (such as amiodarone).
- Other medications (for example, over-the-counter medicines, herbs, and natural supplements, such as vitamins and glucosamine) include an arbitrary.
- Describe the specific adverse effects caused by various drugs (for instance, nausea or peripheral edema caused by amlodipine).
- Adherence to the medicine (Is the medicine taken regularly by the patient?) keeping in mind that the information may be inaccurate.
- Previous drug allergy reactions, explaining their known pattern and time frame (e.g., hives, anaphylactic shock).
An individual’s medical record may contain health information, including allergies, illnesses, surgeries, immunizations, and other results of physical exams and tests. It may also reflect your medical history, recently used medicines, and health habits, such as diet and exercise.
Medication History Prevents Prescription Errors
An individual’s medication history should offer details about all current and previous prescriptions, previous adverse reactions to drugs, current medications, including herbal and alternative remedies, and treatment follow-up.
Preventing errors is undoubtedly a factor in enhancing patient safety. – We hope to have professionals make decisions regarding these countries based on what we found from this survey. We also present guidelines for those who want to prevent elements that may be based on this stratification.
Over a quarter of hospital error boundaries are credited to unclear drug histories being collected at admission. Within this assessment, we researched the frequency, type, and clinical significance of medication history record errors at the time of hospital admission.
Accurate medication history records are a critical part of medication safety. First, they can expose the cause of a patient’s condition, for instance, unexpected drug events or non-adherence to drug therapies.
Mistakes during medication history recording may cause either interrupted or incorrect treatment. Computerized electronic medical record order entry systems may fail to detect these errors. The intake order in automated electronic medical records systems may not be capable of making sure there are no omissions of over-the-counter drugs entered before admission without access to community pharmacy databases.
Medication history errors, such as omitting the correct quantity of drugs, are common and can negatively affect the patient. High alert for hypersensitivity is sometimes inadequately addressed or neglected, leading to inappropriate avoidance or reduction.
Between 16 and 18 percent of typical prescription mistakes led to deadly circumstances for patients; for instance, from Jan 2005 to June 2006, 38 deaths were drug-related by prescription mistakes.
Renal insufficiencies are usually revealed by a history of instructing caution when introducing an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor class. Additionally, the effects of several drugs can be detected through an analysis.
After a patient is discharged, the pharmacist must take another look at their prior prescription for incorrect medications. This is not likely to occur for up to two full days after admission. Accordingly, the patient’s drug history must be flawless at discharge and should be checked as soon as possible during your stay.
The medication history should include an extensive list of each patient’s drugs that follow the Department of Pharmacy’s directions for prescribing. Additionally, any relevant information regarding patient adherence to the defined plan, previous hypersensitivity reactions, adverse reactions, and the customer’s previous prescription history should be summarised and compared with the case notes from their hospital.
Ways to optimize errors through Medication History
According to Dr. Julia Spencer a medical practitioner at a postal worker job, there are various approaches to reducing erroneous prescription orders (such as pharmacists being involved in supervising drug therapy).
- Pharmacists have performed medication reconciliation for many years. Pharmacists obtain more complete medication histories in acute general (internal) medicine admissions than many other physicians.
- It might be possible to ensure an accurate medication history by using electronic prescribing. Medication history is still crucial in electronic prescribing, but transcription errors will be reduced (for instance, giving methotrexate at night rather than once a day).
- There is a widespread need for a worldwide system for grading the competency of prescribing medicine. The standard must be the same regardless of whether undergraduates or postgraduates take the course. Basic and clinical pharmacology training is essential to prevent medication history and other medication errors.
Conclusion
Medication errors are widespread, and their effects can be severe. Large-scale studies indicate this is a widespread problem, but their results are lacking because of small sample sizes, different metrics, and the lack of conclusive data, Essential elements include medication histories, which often contain errors, and measurements, which are commonly omitted. Pharmacists can obtain medication histories during acute admissions or post-discharge clinic sessions to prevent errors.
Electronic prescriptions are not an alternative to accurate medication history, yet they can decrease prescription errors due to transcribed medical information. Hence, educating doctors about the importance of complete medication histories and the need to avoid injustice by verifying procedural direction is essential.
