Medication error identification is a key to prevention: a performance improvement approach.

The leadership of Memorial Hospital of Carbondale sponsored an interdisciplinary continuous quality improvement team effort to address medication errors. The need for increased awareness, documentation, and reporting of medication errors throughout the organization was identified as a priority through risk assessment. Ineffective reporting of medication errors occurred in all medication distribution categories: prescribing, transcribing, dispensing, and administration. Improvement interventions focused on building an awareness of the occurrence of medication errors through identification and on the reporting of those errors to the risk management department.