Crisis management plan for medication incident in an acute hospital

Crises happen in our everyday lives. They are unpredictable and inevitable. Good crisis management is able to turn danger into opportunity. Hospitals are places with various procedures that involve a wide range of people from different parts of the society. This makes hospital settings prone to patient safety crises. Medical incident is a hot issue in newspapers in Hong Kong nowadays. Among all, medication error is a major one. However, there is no well-documented and detailed crisis management plan for medication incidents in the hospitals. This chapter reviews literature related to crisis management and medication incidents. It presents a crisis management plan with reference to a case scenario of medication incident in an acute hospital. It aims to address the importance of medication safety and the nurses’ responsibility in maintaining medication safety, to discuss current practices in the administration of medication, and to develop a crisis management plan for medication incidents in local hospitals. It also discusses the implications of the crisis management plan for future practice.