[Pharmaceutical care strategies to prevent medication errors].

Objective: To evaluate the impact of implementing new programs to improve the quality of the pharmaceutical care and unit-dose distribution system for in-patients.

Material And Methods: An observational and prospective study was carried out in a general hospital during two different six-monthly period. Transcription and dispensation errors were evaluated in twelve wards during the first six months. Then, two new measures were introduced: the first- reference ward-pharmacist and the second-a new protocol for checking medication on the ward. Results were evaluated by SPSS v. 14 program.

Results: In the transcription evaluation, units without a ward pharmacist did not improve. Transcription errors significantly decreased in three units: gynaecology-urology (3.24% vs. 0.52%), orthopaedic (2% vs. 1.69%) and neurology-pneumology (2.81% vs. 2.02%). In dispensing, only units with the new protocol decreased their medication errors (1.77% vs. 1.24%).

Conclusions: The participation of pharmacists in multidisciplinary teams and exhaustive protocols for dispensing medication were effective in detecting and decreasing medication errors in patients.