Preventing Medication Errors and Improving Drug Therapy Outcomes : A Management Systems Approach

Why medicines often fail to produce the desired result and how such failures can be avoided

How to think about drug product safety and effectiveness

How the main participants in a medications use system can improve outcomes and how professional and personal values, attitudes, and ethical reasoning fit into drug therapy

What a properly designed and managed medications use system would look like — specific components, how the components fit together into a system, and how the system can be maintained and improved

Ways to evaluate medications use systems, how to recognize ineffective systems operations, how to identify missing system components and how to correct them

How the environment of medications use affects systems operations and patient outcomes, and why standards must change to improve drug safety and effectiveness

Drug-related illnesses and complications cost the health care system billions of dollars each year. Medical errors account for approximately 100,000 deaths each year, and drugs are the most common cause of medical errors in hospitals. Synthesizing research studies from seven nations, Preventing Medication Errors and Improving Drug Therapy Outcomes: A Management Systems Approach explores medications use from a social perspective. It identifies and describes the preventable adverse outcomes of drug therapy, discusses the safety, cost-effectiveness, and quality of medications use from a management systems perspective, and proposes systematic solutions.