Comparison of Intensive Care Unit Medication Errors Reported to the United States’ MedMarx and the United Kingdom's National Reporting and Learning System: A Cross-sectional Study

The objective was to compare the characteristics of medication errors reported to 2 national error reporting systems by conducting a cross-sectional analysis of errors reported from adult intensive care units to the UK National Reporting and Learning System and the US MedMarx system. Outcome measures were error types>severity of patient harm>stage of medication process>and involved medications. The authors analyzed 2837 UK error reports and 56 368 US reports. Differences were observed between UK and US errors for wrong dose (44% vs 29%)>omitted dose (8.6% vs 27%)>and stage of medication process (prescribing: 14% vs 49%; administration: 71% vs 42%). Moderate/severe harm or death was reported in 4.9% of UK versus 3.4% of US errors. Gentamicin was cited in 7.4% of the UK versus 0.7% of the US reports (odds ratio = 9.25). There were differences in the types of errors reported and the medications most often involved. These differences warrant further examination.