Role of pharmacists in medication safety

Role of pharmacists in medication safety
Involvement of pharmacists is crucial in the realization of medical safety. Many kinds of research conducted on drug safety, supports the participation of pharmacists. Ensuring that pharmacist are around on calls and in intensive care unit (ICU) can decrease adverse drugs cases by two-thirds (Gebhart, 2010). The major role of these medical practitioners in ICU is to cardiovascular agents.
Introduction of pharmacists to various section of the hospital can help minimize adverse cases. For instance according to Saine, introducing pharmacists to the pediatric unit has contributed to minimizing errors six folds and reduce severity by events by 46 %( Gebhart, 2010).
When Pharmacists are used for medication reconciliation during admission, a high level of efficiency is achieved. 98% reduces adverse cases emanating from wrongly admitted a patient and incorrectly diagnosing. This translates to the transfer of effectiveness from admission to the diagnosing. Reduction of errors has also been reported from the discharging counseling unit. The inclusion of Pharmacists in this area has cut down the preventable post-discharge incidences from 10% to 1 %.
Medication safety personnel must collaborate with all the other people involved in their respective disciplines (Schnipper et al., 2006). To achieve accuracy in drug administration, a culture of good communication for relaying the correct intended information is essential. Pharmacists should be actively involved in the planning and implementation in the organization.

They should have a leadership role. This is to ensure that any technology acquired will support safe medication use.
Medical technology has significantly improved the medical and prevented the potential errors. Some services that previously were carried out manually are now computerized. For example, the records already prepared and stored manually are now computerized. This means that the details of any patients can easily be accessed. At a glance, one will know where to find a certain drug needed by a particular patient. This has significantly reduced errors that were happening before.

References
Gebhart. F. (2010). Medication safety calls for pharmacist involvement. Retrieved December 2, 2016, from http://drugtopics.modernmedicine.com/%5Bnode-source-domain-raw%5D/news/modernmedicine/modern-medicine-feature-articles/medication-safety-cal
Schnipper, J. L., Kirwin, J. L., Cotugno, M. C., Wahlstrom, S. A., Brown, B. A., Tarvin, E., … & Bates, D. W. (2006). The Role of pharmacist counseling in preventing adverse drug events after hospitalization. Archives of internal medicine, 166(5), 565-571..