2019 Volume 20 Issue 3 Pages 119-125
In several hospitals, double-checking is a common practice when mixing injectable drugs to ensure safety and is practiced when mixing all drugs；however, the efficacy of this method remains debatable. In two internal medicine wards in an advanced treatment hospital, double-checking was switched to single-checking for mixing injectable drugs, except for high-risk drugs. This study aims to compare the safety and time taken for mixing after introducing single-checking.
We investigated the number of injectable drugs mixing-related incidents reported, along with the details and levels of incidences in the 8 months before and after the single-checking introduction to assess safety. Cameras were set up in two wards to investigate the time required. Checking was recorded for 24 hours, and the time for checking was calculated by video analysis. Five days each from the double-checking period, and 2 and 4 weeks after introducing single-checking, were compared.
During the double- and single-checking periods, 0.09 incidents/1000 drugs and 0.12 incidents/1000 drugs were reported, respectively, which was not statistically significant (p=0.654). Moreover, no significant differences were noted between double- and single-checking regarding the details and levels of incidents. The mean time taken for checking was 32.8 s per drug during the double-checking period, and 14.0 s and 15.1 s after 2 and 4 weeks of introducing single-checking. Hence, checking required a markedly greater amount of time during the double-checking period (p<0.01).
This study found no difference in safety between the double- and single-checking method, excluding high-risk drugs；however, checking time halved after introducing single-checking.
