Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Doctor of Healthcare Administration (D.H.A.)

School

Health Services

Advisor

Kourtney Nieves

Abstract

While preventable, medication administration error rates surpass most estimates and result in poor quality care. Researchers have demonstrated that interventions have been identified, new technology has been deployed, and training and education have increased, yet the errors persist. Researchers have yet been able to establish the most prevalent, harmful, and costly types of medication administration errors. The purpose of this quantitative study was to identify trends in medication administration errors committed in inpatient settings, specific to the type of error, patient outcomes, and malpractice payment amounts. Donabedian’s model for healthcare quality, derived from the three categories of structure, process, and outcomes, was utilized to determine how mistakes persist despite numerous interventions targeted at these factors. The data set utilized included malpractice claim data points with year of act or origination dates between 2010 and 2020 through the NPDB Public Use File. A correlational analysis was conducted utilizing Pearson’s R and multiple linear regression to define the relationships between the independent variable of medication administration error type and dependent variables of severity of alleged malpractice injury and total payment. Analysis of the data indicate a greater prevalence of administration errors related to wrong medication and wrong dose; of these, wrong dosage errors resulted in greater harm to the patient, though medications administered via the wrong route resulted in greater payment amounts. Also, malpractice payment amounts increase with greater severity of harm. Positive social change may include the promotion of more precise error-targeting interventions for preventing medication administration errors in inpatient settings.

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