Patent ID: 7657443

Claim:
A method for assessing potential for harm of detected medication errors associated with delivering medication to a patient, comprising the steps of: receiving, via a user interface at a patient care device, entered medication administration parameter values that program the patient care device to deliver medication to a patient; wherein the patient care device further includes a memory in which is stored medication administration guidelines representing acceptable values for the medication administration parameters; comparing, via a processor at the patient care device, the entered medication administration parameter values to the acceptable medication administration parameter values stored in the memory, and further indicating medication errors whenever discrepancies between the values are detected; storing, via the processor, a log of the detected medication errors in the memory; wherein the memory further stores a harm index database including quantifiable harm index values representing a potential for harm associated with a plurality of potential medication errors; wherein the harm index database further includes a plurality of harm index parameters relating to patient treatment, each harm index parameter being associated with the quantifiable harm index values; wherein the harm index parameters further include an overdose parameter which further includes a drug type parameter associated with a dosage parameter, the drug type parameter indicates a potential for causing harm when the drug is incorrectly prescribed, and the dosage parameter indicates a potential for causing harm based on the magnitude of the drug dosage; wherein the harm index parameters further include a level of care parameter which defines a risk for a given level of care; wherein the harm index parameters further include a detectability parameter which defines the likelihood that the medication error would have been detected by a care-giver before a harmful adverse drug event occurs; determining, via the processor, a quantifiable harm index value for each detected medication error stored in the log, and a quantifiable overall harm index value indicating the aggregate severity of the averted medication errors stored in the log based on combining the harm index values associated with the corresponding medication errors stored in the harm index database; and displaying, via a display at the patient care device, a report of the overall harm index value to the device user before potentially harmful medication delivery.