Older adults with cancer are typically prescribed multiple medications (i.e., polypharmacy) and are therefore at risk of adverse drug events (ADE). In this study, the medical records of older adults (those at least 70 years old) receiving cancer care who had an unplanned hospital admission were reviewed to determine if it was potentially related to an ADE. Of the hospitalized patients, more than half were potentially due to ADE at three and six months after the initial oncology visit. Including a clinical pharmacist may help reduce ADEs and hospitalizations.

Polypharmacy in older adults increases the risk of potentially inappropriate medications (PIM) and potential drug-drug interactions (PDI). This secondary analysis of a national study of older adults with advanced cancer sought to identify associations between polypharmacy (eight or more medications), PIMs, and PDIs with adverse cancer treatment outcomes. Polypharmacy and PDIs were associated with increased risk of adverse treatment outcomes, but PIMs were not.

Pediatric patients are at particularly high risk for medication errors. This article describes the STAMP initiative (Safe Treatment and Administration of Medicine in Pediatrics) which aims to reduce pediatric inpatient prescribing and administration errors. The authors summarize the STAMP interventions originally implemented in 2017 and discuss the new interventions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic (between July 2020 and August 2021), which led to sustained reductions in prescribing errors.

Medication errors are common in patients using oral chemotherapy. In this study, a hospital pharmacist identified medication discrepancies in nearly 75% of patients starting oral chemotherapy, with an average of two discrepancies per patient. The pharmacist followed up with the patient’s oncologist via the electronic health record, and the oncologist could accept or reject the pharmacist’s recommendation. Patient outcomes were not evaluated in this study.

Children with complex home care needs, such as children with cancer, are particularly vulnerable to medication errors. This longitudinal study used in-home observations and chart review to monitor 131 pediatric patients with leukemia or lymphoma for six months and found that 10% experienced adverse drug events due to medication errors in the home and 42% experienced a medication error with the potential for harm. Failures in communication was the most common contributing factor. Findings underscored a critical need for interventions to support safe medication use at home. Researchers concluded that improvements addressing communication with and among caregivers should be co-developed with families and based on human-factors engineering.

Chemotherapy administration errors can result in serious patient harm. Using failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), researchers identified potential failures related to the medication process for intravenous chemotherapy. Common failures included incorrect patient information, non-standardized chemotherapy protocols, and problems related to supportive therapy.

Researchers in this study used healthcare failure mode and effect analysis (HFMEA) to identify and reduce errors during chemotherapy preparation. Nine potential failure modes were identified – wrong label, drug, dose, solvent, or volume; non-sterile preparation; incomplete control; improper packaging or labeling, and; break or spill – and the potential causes and effects. Potential approaches to reduce these failure modes include updating the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), implementing a bar code system, and using a weight-based control system.

When an error or adverse event occurs, patients and families want to be informed. In this study of oncology patients, more than one quarter perceived an adverse event had occurred. While most were informed soon after the event occurred and given an explanation, fewer than half were given information on how to move forward with a complaint if they wished. Regular communication between patients and providers about actual or perceived adverse events may decrease the risk of it happening again.

Clinical pharmacist involvement has improved medication safety in several clinical areas. Using the therapeutic outcome monitoring (TOM) method, pharmacists in this study identified 43 negative outcomes associated with oral chemotherapy medication and performed 81 pharmaceutical interventions. The TOM method increased patient safety by improving the use of medications.

Patients taking oral anti-cancer drugs may experience severe side effects and medication errors. In this randomized controlled study, patients taking oral chemotherapy drugs were randomized to receive usual care (control) or additional intensive pharmacological/pharmaceutical care (intervention). Patients in the intervention group reported considerably fewer medication errors and side effects and increased treatment satisfaction.

Computerized prescriber (or physician) order entry (CPOE) systems are widely used in healthcare and studies have shown a reduction in medication errors with CPOE. This study focused on whether CPOE systems improved the incidence of chemotherapy-related medication errors. The study included 11 studies in the review but only 8 studies were in the meta-analysis. The authors found that the use of CPOE was associated with an 81% reduction in chemotherapy-related medication errors, indicating that CPOE is a valuable strategy for this patient population.

Engaging patients and families is an essential part of identifying and preventing patient safety events. This study found that an educational intervention providing patients and families with the skills necessary to audit four safe practices (patient identification, hand hygiene, blood or chemotherapy identification, and related side effects) can provide healthcare organizations with valuable quality and safety information.

Oral chemotherapy regimens are complex and may lead to severe adverse drug events. Through ethnographic research, the authors found that the two most important factors in ensuring optimal management of oral chemotherapy are (1) early recognition and appropriate response to side effects and (2) maintenance of safe and effective medication communication.

Chemotherapy medications often have complex dosing which can lead to prescribing errors. This article describes the use of simulation-based training to improve pediatric hematology/oncology providers’ ability to identify and mitigate common chemotherapy ordering errors. The authors suggest that simulation-based training can serve as an alternative to systems-based electronic health record (EHR) improvements.

Peer review of radiation oncology patient treatment plans can help prevent harm and reduce errors. In this prospective blinded study, researchers generated treatment plans with simulated errors and randomly inserted these treatment plans into weekly chart rounds to assess the effectiveness of peer review on error detection. Overall detection rate of clinically significant problematic plans was 55%. The authors suggest that error detection could be significantly improved by shortening chart rounds and routine insertion of problematic plans into rounds.

This study evaluated changes made to the electronic health record (EHR) resulting from pharmacist-led medication reconciliation among patients initiating chemotherapy. Most of the included oncology patients had a medication change identified after medication reconciliation, thereby ensuring physician orders were captured and improving medication safety. Medication changes commonly involving vitamin and herbal supplements (medication additions and modifications) and antimicrobials (medication discontinuations).

This study used one cancer hospital’s incident reporting system to evaluate trends in medication error reporting before and after the implementation of a new electronic health record (EHR) system. After implementation, decreases in reporting were observed for wrong-dose, overdose, wrong duration, and wrong frequency medication errors, likely due to EHR tools such as hard stops on medication doses or prohibiting early or late administration.

This study examined patient safety issues stemming from health information technology (HIT)-related information management hazards. The authors identified eleven thematic groups describing such hazards occurring at a systemic level, such as fragmentation of patient information, “information islands” (e.g., nurses and physicians have separate information sets despite the same HIT system), and inadequate information structures (e.g., no drug interaction warning integrated in the chemotherapy prescribing tool).