Nature of adverse events with opioids in hospitalised patients: a post-hoc analysis of three patient record review studies.

OBJECTIVE: Opioids are increasingly prescribed and frequently involved in adverse drug events (ADEs). The underlying nature of opioid-related ADEs (ORADEs) is however understudied. This hampers our understanding of risks related to opioid use during hospitalisation and when designing interventions. Therefore, we provided a description of the nature of ORADEs. DESIGN: A post-hoc analysis of data collected during three retrospective patient record review studies (in 2008, 2011/2012 and 2015/2016). SETTING: The three record review studies were conducted in 32 Dutch hospitals. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 10 917 patient records were assessed by trained nurses and physicians. OUTCOME MEASURES: Per identified ORADE, we described preventability, type of medication error, attributable factors and type of opioids involved. Moreover, the characteristics of preventable and non-preventable ORADEs were compared to identify risk factors. RESULTS: Out of 10 917 patient records, 357 ADEs were identified, of which 28 (8%) involved opioids. Eleven ORADEs were assessed as preventable. Of these, 10 were caused by dosing errors and 4 probably contributed to patients' death. Attributable factors identified were mainly on patient and organisational levels. Morphine and oxycodone were the most frequently involved opioids. The risk for ORADEs was higher in elderly patients. CONCLUSIONS: Only 8% of ADEs identified in our sample were related to opioids. Although the frequency is low, the risk of serious consequences is high. We recommend to use our findings to increase awareness among physicians and nurses. Future interventions should focus on safe dosing of opioids when prescribing and administering, especially in elderly patients.

Nurse compliance with a protocol for safe injectable medication administration: comparison of two multicentre observational studies.

OBJECTIVES: Medication administration errors with injectable medication have a high risk of causing patient harm. To reduce this risk, all Dutch hospitals implemented a protocol for safe injectable medication administration. Nurse compliance with this protocol was evaluated as low as 19% in 2012. The aim of this second evaluation study was to determine whether nurse compliance had changed over a 4-year period, what factors were associated over time with protocol compliance and which strategies have been implemented by hospitals to increase protocol compliance. METHODS: In this prospective observational study, conducted between November 2015 and September 2016, nurses from 16 Dutch hospitals were directly observed during intravenous medication administration. Protocol compliance was complete if nine protocol proceedings were conducted correctly. Protocol compliance was compared with results from the first evaluation. Multilevel logistic regression analyses were used to assess the associations over time between explanatory variables and complete protocol compliance. Implemented strategies were classified according to the five components of the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) model. RESULTS: A total of 372 intravenous medication administrations were observed. In comparison with 2012, more proceedings per administration were conducted (mean 7.6, 95% CI 7.5 to 7.7 vs mean 7.3, 95% CI 7.3 to 7.4). No significant change was seen in complete protocol compliance (22% in 2016); compliance with the proceedings 'hand hygiene' and 'check by a second nurse' remained low. In contrast to 2012, the majority of the variance was caused by differences between wards rather than between hospitals. Most implemented improvement strategies targeted the organisation component of the SEIPS model. CONCLUSIONS: Compliance with 'hand hygiene' and 'check by a second nurse' needs to be further improved in order to increase complete protocol compliance. To do so, interventions focused on nurses and individually tailored to each ward are needed.