Medication Administration Error

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Technology is a massive part of our society today and it is continuously changing. It can help solve issues and increase sufficiency. One safety issue that technology can help improve is medication administration errors that occur in hospitals and other health care settings. A medication administration error is defined as any preventable event that could possibly result in unsuitable medication use or harm to the patient while the health care professional is in control of the medication. The most common type of medical error is medication errors. Medication administration errors happen when the seven rights of medication administration are not checked; these include the right patient, the right drug, the right dose, the right time, the …show more content…

(Smeulers, Onderwater, Van Zwieten, & Vermeulen, 2014, p. 277) This issue is important to nursing because nurses may be more susceptible to these errors due to both environmental and workload issues faced by nurses while on the …show more content…

In the reading completed in class, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System by the Institute of Medicine, medical errors that take place in the hospital setting are discussed. Today, a hospitals main focus is to get patients out as soon as possible. Hospitals make more money by increased bed turn over rates. As the article states, there are several strategies for improvement to achieve a better safety record, such as new information technology. I think that as long as hospitals continue to ignore the problems the errors will continue to happen. It is important to figure out why these errors are being made in the hospital setting, and use the available technology to help prevent future errors. While I believe overall that these tools are vital in aiding nurses complete their responsibilities, this technology is not something that nurses can rely on absolutely. Nurses have the skills to complete the seven rights before administering medications and it is necessary that nurses utilize both technological tools as well their own intellect before administering any medications. As our society becomes more reliant on technology everyday, I am certain that I will personally be using bar coding medication administration systems as well as other