By: Lloyd S. Meisels, DVM - Coral Springs Animal Hospital Director
Every veterinary practice ideally
wants to eliminate or dramatically
minimize the possible of potentially
catastrophic drug dosing errors.
This article describes the system
we have in place at Coral Springs
I. PATIENT
All patient identification protocols must be followed before administering any medication to a
patient.
First, be sure that patient ID band matches the patient cage sheet.
Animal Hospital to prevent drug
dosing and administration errors. With 150 employ-
II. MEDICATION
ees, communication errors can easily occur if systems are not in place. No matter how many staff
you employ, this system, once modified to the
needs of your practice, should be useful.
A. READ THE LABEL OF THE MEDICATION THREE
TIMES:
Once before removing
stored location.
Second before removing the contents of
the medication.
Lastly before returning medication to storage area.
A standard operating procedure has been established for Coral Springs Animal Hospital staff when
dosing and administering medication to patients.
Because of the variety, complexity, and the size of
our hospital, a standard protocol must be used
hospital-wide to assist in the prevention of dosage
and administration errors.
There are “5 Rights” to safe medication delivery to
patients:
THE FIVE RIGHTS
1.
RIGHT PATIENT
2.
RIGHT MEDICATION
3.
RIGHT DOSE
4.
RIGHT ROUTE
5.
RIGHT TIME
MEDICATION
from the
B. High Alert Medications:
1. All medications that are considered “High
Alert” (potentially dangerous if given incorrectly) are pre-labeled with a RED label on
the bottle/vial. Inventory personnel are responsible for labeling these drugs before
they are taken out of central storage and
put into hospital use.
2. All “High Alert” medications are to be given
using extreme caution by experienced personnel only.
Experienced personnel include staff veterinarians, CVTs, LVTs, and AHTs. A non-licensed nurse
that works directly with critical care patients