Medicines are used by patients to control or cure their diseases and ailments. Drug therapy is becoming more and more complex with the introduction of new medicines and newer techniques in healthcare. Errors that are occurring during prescribing, dispensing, administration of medication and in patient compliance is known as medication errors. They can sometimes cause serious adverse effects in patients, including impairment and death. Medication errors are defined as any mistake at any stage of the medication use process: selection and procurement, storage ordering and transcribing, preparation and dispensing, administration or monitoring. Every error in drug therapy is potentially harmful to human and also increase the treatment cost. It is believed that improved health systems and providing individual care can help to avoid medication errors. Medication safety has attracted the attention of Government regulatory agencies, including The Joint Commission. Medication errors occur due to communication failure, confirmation bias, defects in drug distribution, miscalculation of doses, wrong drug administration and poor patient education. Medication errors are a public health issue. Pharmacists should know our responsibilities and work hard to make medication use safe for our patients. The goal of medication therapy is to achieve desired therapeutic outcomes so as to provide better quality of life to the patient (World Alliance for Patient Safety, 2006; The Institute of Medicine, 2006; KaufmanM 2005).
