A new way of managing medicines in hospitals could significantly reduce the incidence of medication errors, an Irish study has found.

A medication error is a mistake involving a medication. This could include a mistake with the dose, adding a medication that should not be present or missing out on a medication altogether.

Such errors can affect how a drug works or could result in a patient requiring further medical care. A small number of errors even have the potential to cause serious harm.

The study, the first of its kind in Ireland, was carried out by researchers at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and the pharmacy department of Tallaght Hospital. It involved doctors and hospital pharmacists taking a more collaborative approach to the management of medicines within the hospital setting.

This approach involved doctors and pharmacists working together at the time of admission, during the hospital stay and at discharge. With standard care, a hospital pharmacist would be involved at the time of admission and during the stay, but not at the time of discharge and they would not have the same degree of communication and collaboration with doctors.

The study showed that this new approach led to a 78% reduction in the number of patients experiencing medication errors at the time of admission to hospital, and a 79% reduction in errors at the time of discharge.

The new approach also eliminated all potentially severely harmful errors. Prior to its introduction, such errors affected 6% of patients.

"Admission and discharge from hospital are vulnerable times for patient safety. A lot of complex information needs to be shared between healthcare providers and patients. The chance for miscommunication is high and sometimes this can result in errors which may result in harm," said Dr Tamasine Grimes of TCD.

She noted that often times, patients who come into hospital ‘are already using multiple prescribed medicines'. This makes things even more challenging.

"The involvement of hospital pharmacists in team-based clinical activities at the bedside in Irish hospitals is rare. This study showed that providing team-based care, involving the doctor and the pharmacist from admission through to discharge, significantly improves patient safety and the quality of prescribing," she said.

She added that aside from keeping patients safe, improved prescribing ‘is known to cause a decrease in healthcare use and costs'.

Also commenting on the study, Dr Catherine Wall, a consultant physician at Tallaght Hospital, said that the findings provide ‘valuable information about how to improve medication safety for hospitalised patients'.

"Team working between doctors and pharmacists with a focus on managing medicines improves the quality and safety of medication use," she noted.

Details of this study are published in the journal, BMJ Quality & Safety.