ISMP Medication Error Prevention

Question 1

According to ISMP, what is the most effective strategy for preventing medication errors at the system level?

Accepted Answer

Designing systems that make errors difficult to commit

Answer

Blaming individual nurses for errors

Answer

Increasing staff punishments for mistakes

Answer

Reducing pharmacist oversight

Question 2

ISMP's root cause analysis (RCA) approach to medication errors focuses on:

Accepted Answer

Finding underlying system and process failures

Answer

Identifying the staff member to discipline

Answer

Closing the pharmacy involved

Answer

Reporting to law enforcement

Question 3

Which type of error reporting does ISMP encourage healthcare facilities to adopt?

Accepted Answer

Voluntary, non-punitive near-miss and error reporting

Answer

Mandatory punitive reporting only

Answer

Anonymous reporting to the media

Answer

Reporting only fatal errors

Question 4

Forcing functions in medication safety are design features that:

Accepted Answer

Make it impossible or very difficult to perform an unsafe action

Answer

Allow workarounds to safety checks

Answer

Speed up medication administration

Answer

Remove the need for double-checks

Question 5

ISMP recommends that medication orders be written using metric units and avoid which abbreviation that commonly causes errors?

Accepted Answer

U for units

Answer

mg

Answer

mL

Answer

kg

Question 6

Which communication strategy does ISMP recommend to prevent transcription errors when receiving verbal medication orders?

Accepted Answer

Read back and verify the order with the prescriber

Answer

Write down the order immediately without repeating

Answer

Accept all verbal orders without question

Answer

Record the call for later review