Lead Article

(2000) identified medication errors as the most common type of errors in health care. Later in the quality series, Aspden et al. confirmed the frequency of medication errors. In fact, in their 2007 report, they estimated that a hospital patient, on average, could expect at least one medication error per hospital day. Additionally, they reported that as many as 7,000 deaths might occur each year in hospitals because of medication errors; however, they also reported that there was great variation between hospitals as to the number of events reported (Aspden et al.). Beginning with the work of Leape (1994), the study of medication errors changed the focus from one of individual actions to one of a series of breakdowns or failures within the complex systems in health care. Research by Leape, and Leape, Bates, Cullen, and Cooper (1995) identified nurses as vital to the hospital “safety net ” that served as the front line of defense to intercept medication errors before they reached the patient. What has been lacking are investiga-tions of the critical role nurses ’ medication safety care practices played in preventing medication errors from reaching the patient. Qualitative research methods have great value for exploring a phenomenon when little is known. Although qualitative methods were used in some studies of nurses and medication errors, in most of these studies the focus was on nurse-initiated drug errors (Covell & Richie