From: Chemotherapeutic errors in hospitalised cancer patients: attributable damage and extra costs
Type of medication errors | Definition |
---|---|
Prescription errors | |
Error linked to the choice of antineoplastic regimen | Difference of antineoplastic regimen compared to the previous cycle or the multidisciplinary medical decision |
Dose error | Under- or overdosage of more than 5% of antineoplastic drugs (calculation mistake or omission of dose reduction when dosage adjustment was required) |
Incomplete prescription | Missing data on the prescription, such as patient identity, anthropometric or biological data, drug dose, prescriber's signature, and date of administration |
Cancellation of medical approval | Misinterpretation of the clinical status of the patient, who was not able to receive chemotherapy |
Pharmaceutical errors | Errors in pharmaceutical analysis (i.e., pharmacist-generated mistakes or failure to detect prescription errors), data entry in the pharmaceutical software, preparation, storage, or dispensing errors |
Drug administration errors | Any discrepancy between the physicians' chemotherapy orders and drug delivery to the patient, such as timing errors, omission, unordered drug, wrong route, wrong patient, deteriorated drug, and technical error in administration (e.g., wrong infusion flow rate) |