A pharmacist-led intravenous medication administration training program decreased IV administration errors only slightly, according to an article in the British Medical Journal of Quality and Safety.
Researchers implemented an intervention of lectures, practical sessions and guidelines led by a clinical pharmacist and a nurse in a Vietnamese intensive care unit. Data on errors was collected in 12-hour blocks for one week via direct observation of approximately 1,200 IV doses.
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While IV errors were 2.6 times less likely after the intervention, error rates only decreased 15 percent, from 64 percent down to 48.9 percent, indicating training is not completely effective in reducing errors without other measures.
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