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Administration of medication essay
Administration of medication essay
How to analyze the problem of medication errors
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Fisher Week Three Response to McConnelly Yvonne, your post was extremely intriguing to me as a community health department is not an environment I have had the privilege of experiencing. Interestingly, the utilization of computerized order entry does not prevent the prescriber from ordering an incorrect medication dose or the wrong drug (Lapane, Waring, Dube’, & Schneider, 2011). Do the facility employ process to assure nurses are checking the medication in order to avoid the administration of an incorrect drug or dosage? Distractions have been linked to medication errors, consequently, and the ability to care for a solitary patient at one time clearly minimizes the distractions and interruptions that a nurse may experience during medication
There are several ways these errors could have been prevented. The nurses should have done three different checks on the drugs with the medication administration record (MAR) and the patient. If they had done those checks properly, then the error could have been caught early. According to the report, the problem with the situation with the second patient was the doctor’s handwriting on the prescription. If the doctors would have made make sure their handwriting iwas legible, thanthen the second patient in this sad case may not have been a victim at all.
Medication errors are preventable adverse events and costly to patients, insurance companies and health care organizations (Institute of Medicine, 2006). It is estimated that for every adverse drug event that occurs in a hospital, adds over 8,000 to the hospital stay (Institute of Medicine, 2006). One of the essential components in reducing medication error is a collaborative partnership with the patient and healthcare providers to facilitate communication. Patient education regarding risks, side effects, drug interactions and contraindications must be thoroughly reviewed with the patient (Institute of Medicine, 2006). The use of technology for prescribing, dispensing and to obtain detailed information regarding
Moreover, several studies have been conducted to examine the effects of low nurse staffing on patients hospitalization experiences, as well as its effect on nurse careers in the long run. A recent study by Frith, Anderson, Tseng, and Fong (2012) to explore the relationship between nurse staffing and medication errors, demonstrated that medication errors were higher in a cardiac care unit and non-cardiac care unit when staffing levels were lower. In addition, Frith et al. (2012) pointed out that medication errors increase by 18% for every 20% decrease in nurse staffing below the average due to failure to follow medication administration protocol As mentioned earlier, nurses perform the last and the most important step of medication administration. Thus, having adequate time to assess each patient efficiently and following the medication rights is critical to provide safe patient care and prevent errors.
Six months after the introduction of medication aides, error rates were as follows: RN (2.75%), LPN (7.25%) and medication aides (6.06%) with a mean error rate of 6.6%” Randolph & Scott-Calwiezell (2010) as cited in Budden (2011). While errors remain, the objective of reducing inaccuracies among primary nursing staff was achieved by
Reporting medication errors is beneficial to improve the learning process for nurses. The factors of workload, ineffective communication, and distraction all contribute to medication errors (Sears et al., 2013). Nurses often excuse the behavior of colleagues when a medication error occurs, or nurses will pass the buck to a senior nurse to report the medication error (Haw, Stubbs and Dickens, 2014). Implementing a no blame policy for reporting medication errors, and providing nurses with the knowledge and training to report medication errors will result in an increase of medication errors reported. References Haw, C., Stubbs, J. and Dickens, G. (2014).
Medication errors can be very dangerous for the ones taking the wrong medicines or doses; therefore, safety measures must be in place. Administering them must be done with an understanding and focus. One missed check could have a staff member giving a resident the wrong set of pills. Some interventions to help prevent the medication error from occurring is to first report errors. When errors are reported, the main cause is to try and never let the error occur again.
Effective communication is crucial in ensuring that patient care is coordinated and safe. This semester, I witnessed an incident where a patient's medication was missed because the communication between the physician and the nurse was unclear. The nurse assumed that the physician had ordered the medication, but the physician thought the nurse had already given it. This resulted in the patient not receiving the medication on time, which could have led to complications. This experience reinforced the importance of clear and effective communication among healthcare
Medication Errors in Healthcare The nursing profession entails many responsibilities that range from providing emotional support to administering medications that could result in death for those receiving care. Approximately 40% of a nurse's day consists of passing medication, a duty that sets their level of liability above many other healthcare professions (McCuistion, Vuljoin-DiMaggio, Winton, Yeager, & Kee, 2018). Despite today's advances in technology and nursing education, the frequency of medication errors is still staggering. To ensure that the benefits of nursing outweigh the risks, nurses look to the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) six core competencies for guidance.
ADEs associated with medication discrepancies can prolong hospital stays and, in the post-discharge period, may lead to emergency room visits, hospital readmissions, and utilization of other health care resources. Preventable adverse drug events (PADE) are associated with 1 of 5 injuries or deaths and a result of poorly designed systems, which often lack independent redundancies. Preventable ADEs at transition points of care account for 46-56% of all medication errors. One strategy to reduce PADEs and ADEs is to reconcile the medication orders between the two transition points. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) defines medication reconciliation as a formal process to compile a list of all the medications a patient is taking before admission, and comparing it with the doctor’s admission, transfer and discharge orders.
According to the provision 3.4, nurses should have professional competence in nursing practice. Nurses should promote health and patient safety, reduce errors and create a culture of excellence. When errors occur, nurses should follow the institutional guidelines in reporting errors and ensure responsible disclosure of errors to patients. When error occurs, whether one’s own or an error of a coworker, nurse should not condone through silence or try to hide it. It is important to report the errors to the concerned authority to maintain a safe patient care environment.
Medication Errors and Preventions What is a medication error? What happens if a medication error is made? Can they be prevented? A medication error is any preventable event that has happened involving medication .
Medication use is potentially dangerous. Polypharmacy is increasing, and makes it harder to keep track of side effects and interactions and of potentially inappropriate drug combinations. “The risk of serious consequences, hospitalization, and death due to medication errors increases with patients’ age and number of medications (Scand J Prim Health Care, 2012)”. For example, the GP is supposed to monitor the patient's regular medication, but does not always do so. Lack of monitoring and keeping track of patients’ medication use is a main cause when a patient is given inappropriate drugs.
Nursing documentation as defined by the Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing is “anything written or electronically generated that describes the status of a patient on the care or service given” (Potter, Kerr, Potter & Perry, 2014). Documentation is an important aspect of the nursing profession as it serves multiple purposes; some of which include: furnishing legal evidence of care, ensuring continuity and quality of care, tracking patient outcomes, and being a reference for future follow up assessments. Because of the many uses of nursing documentation, it is important that case notes are accurate and able to clearly convey what the nurse has discovered during his or her assessment. In order to ensure this, the following principles have been established:
Consequent to the planning of health care, implementation of care and evaluation of the treatment provided. The vitality of the nursing documentation cannot be emphasized more than as part of the standard