HOW DO ADVERSE EVENTS HAPPEN?

Any place medication is dispensed, an adverse event can happen. That includes the home, a hospital, pharmacy, doctor’s office or other dispensary. Like an error, these occurrences can be the result of inattention, omission, confusion or miscommunication between all parties. Since many medications have similar sounding names and prescriptions are still handwritten, human error is still a possibility.

As with anything done by people, mistakes can and will be made, even by the most seasoned medical professional. That problem with medication mistakes is that there are serious, sometimes fatal, consequences to such errors.

When in doubt, ask questions. Doctors are often busy, and hospitals can be even busier. Thus, it is incumbent to ensure the patient has received written instructions when available and thoroughly understand the schedule for taking medications.

Some important questions:

1)    What is the medication supposed to do?  This seems like a basic question, but it certainly pinpoints what the effects will be and how long until results.

2)    What is the duration of the prescription? The answer can be days or until the last bit of medication is taken. Also ask the optimal time of day to take the medication.

3)    What activities or foods should be avoided? Things like acidic juices and certain foods may have to be avoided while taking certain medications in order to avoid counteracting the benefits.

4)    Are there any side effects?  If you have a reaction, you need to know whether it’s normal or an indication of something more serious.