Types of Medication Errors

A medication was given at the wrong time to a client or a medication was not administered at all. A medication was given by the wrong route. Documentation was incorrect or missing.

One of the recommendations to reduce medication errors and harm is to use the "five rights" the right patient, the right drug, the right dose, the right route, and the right time.

Medication errors can occur at any stage of the medication ... (administering the Right Medication, ... Medication errors and adverse drug events in pediatric ...

One of the recommendations to reduce medication errors and harm is to use the "five rights" the right patient, the right drug, the right dose, the right route, and the right time.

With this in mind, it is not surprising that in medication error research, the most frequent type of error is wrong time, accounting for up to one third of reported medication errors. Eliminating wrong-time errors from the analysis in medication error research considerably shrinks the overall medication error rate.