open access: Intravenous chemotherapy preparation errors: Patient safety risks identified in a pan-Canadian exploratory study

Intravenous chemotherapy preparation errors: Patient safety risks identified in a pan-Canadian exploratory study

Introduction

Medication errors have long been established as among the most common preventable adverse events.^1–3 Research on medication errors has been extensive in a variety of settings, including cancer chemotherapy. For example, chemotherapy error rates have been estimated to occur in 3% of patients⁴ and 7.1% of outpatient visits.⁵ Although these rates could be considered relatively low, the narrow therapeutic range of chemotherapy means that errors are potentially very harmful and are therefore a concern to the oncology community (Blogger's Note - and the patients)....