Washington, July 10: A recent study revealed that infants and young heart patients are most vulnerable to the heart medication errors. The study also found that the highest number of errors occurred in the case of infants under the age of one.
The reason behind these medication errors could be manual miscalculation of weight-sensitive doses, and misinterpretation of safe age ranges of adult drugs used for children by the health care providers.
The research team, led by Marlene Miller, Johns Hopkins Childrens’ Hospital Centre, analyzed the data pertaining to 821 medication errors, submitted to a national voluntary error-reporting database.
The data analysis revealed that half of the errors involved children younger than one year, while 90 percent errors occurred in children under the age of six months.
The research team also found that 96% of the time the medication errors didn’t do any detectable harm to patients. However, the remaining 4% of the time, errors have led some amount of damage. But no one has died till now, due to medication errors.
The research team said that certain medication errors in children can be reduced or prevented by computerizing drug orders with built-in double-and triple-checking mechanisms that reduce the likelihood for miscalculation or misinterpretation.
—–Agencies