Understanding and mitigating medication errors associated with patient harm in adult intensive care units: a scoping review
An erratum to this article was published (Intensive Care Med, Jul 2025 ↗)
Authors' conclusion
Most medication errors in ICU are identified and intercepted by systems and staff. A minority lead to preventable patient harm and increased length of stay. Decision support embedded in e-prescribing systems, medication reconciliation and review processes and clinical pharmacist activities reduce medication errors and patient harm.
Study context
- Population
- Adult intensive care unit (ICU) patients; literature on medication errors and preventable adverse drug eventsrecords included
- Participants
- 48 patients
- Outcome
- Medication errors and preventable adverse drug events in adult ICU
Methodological details7 electronic databases searched; 2960 records identified
- 7 electronic databases searched; 2960 records identified
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Rate of serious or life-threatening harm, of all medication errors
1-5%
Interventions or mitigation practices focused on the medication prescription phase
n = 11, 55%
Original publication
Understanding and mitigating medication errors associated with patient harm in adult intensive care units: a scoping review. Intensive Care Med. Published 20 May 2025. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →