The effect of testing on the reported incidence of medication errors in a medical center.

This study explores the impact of eliminating a yearly medication test on the medication error rate reported on both incident reports and questionnaires and describes nurse-identified strategies that may prevent medication errors. Results indicate that eliminating the annual medication test does not significantly change the overall medication error rate. However, the number of errors involving the administration of a medication to the wrong patient has increased significantly. More medication errors have been reported on the questionnaires than on the incident reports. Four factors have been identified by the nurses as being helpful in preventing medication errors. Several limitations of this study dictate that the results be applied with caution. However, in this setting, the use of an annual medication test as a strategy for reducing medication errors has not been supported.