In the world of healthcare, doctors play a huge role in making sure patients get the right medicines to manage their health issues. However, doctors can make mistakes and errors when prescribing medicines, putting patients at risk.
There are multiple reasons why distractions can lead to these prescription errors.
Paying no attention to patient history
Before doctors prescribe medicines, they need to carefully check a patient’s medical history. Distractions can cause them to forget this step.
Without knowing a patient’s health background, such as allergies, past bad reactions or other medicines they are already taking, doctors might accidentally prescribe drugs that could cause harm. In fact, almost 1 in 3 American adults have some form of food allergy, eczema or seasonal allergy as of 2021.
Misunderstanding dosage instructions
Getting the right dose of medicine is important for it to work well. Distractions can cause doctors to miswrite dosage instructions or miss important details, like how often the patient should take the medicine.
This mistake can lead to patients getting too little or too much medicine. A seemingly simple mistake like this can seriously harm their health and make their problems worse.
Having communication problems
Good communication between doctors and patients is important to make sure everyone understands the prescribed medicines. Distractions can get in the way of this communication. This leads to confusion about how much medicine to take, possible side effects or the importance of sticking to the prescribed plan.
Over time, complications from prescription errors can wear down the mental health of patients, as well as their physical well-being. Those in charge need to support patients facing medical malpractice of this kind.
