To minimize hazardous drug errors, several measures should be put in place. These include:
1. documentation of cumulative doses of drugs such as doxorubicin so as not to exceed these doses
2. using generic prescribing and defining any acronyms used
3. setting hospital protocols to ensure intrathecal and intravenous chemotherapy is administered at different times to prevent inadvertent intrathecal administration of drugs like vincristine
4. taking note of drug compatibility with infusion fluids e.g cisplatin to be given in normal saline and not dextrose
5. use of Tall man writing when prescribing drugs that sound alike
6. correct documentation of the cycle number, side effects and their severity, writing specific days for the treatment, avoidance of trailing zeros and using leading zeros
7. doing lab works eg renal and hepatic functions,and calculating body surface area before each cycle
8. using an electronic system to reduce errors brought about by bad handwriting
9. having standard operating procedures on who should prescribe these drugs and dose modification
To minimize hazardous drug errors, several measures should be put in place. These include:
1. documentation of cumulative doses of drugs such as doxorubicin so as not to exceed these doses
2. using generic prescribing and defining any acronyms used
3. setting hospital protocols to ensure intrathecal and intravenous chemotherapy is administered at different times to prevent inadvertent intrathecal administration of drugs like vincristine
4. taking note of drug compatibility with infusion fluids e.g cisplatin to be given in normal saline and not dextrose
5. use of Tall man writing when prescribing drugs that sound alike
6. correct documentation of the cycle number, side effects and their severity, writing specific days for the treatment, avoidance of trailing zeros and using leading zeros
7. doing lab works eg renal and hepatic functions,and calculating body surface area before each cycle
8. using an electronic system to reduce errors brought about by bad handwriting
9. having standard operating procedures on who should prescribe these drugs and dose modification