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Pros And Cons Of Medication Errors

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Preventatives for Medication Errors Administration of medications has become more complex and the process more exacting. About 15% of adverse events occurring in hospitals are related to medication. An estimated 98,000 people die every year from medical errors in U.S. hospitals, and a significant number of those deaths are associated with medication errors (Tzeng, Yin & Schneider, 2013). About 700,000 emergency department visits and 120,000 hospitalizations are due to ADEs annually ("Medication safety basics," August ). These errors occur commonly when the nurse becomes easily distracted and loses focus on the task at hand. Thus, causing him/her to miscalculate the dosage prescribed by the physician. This allows the nurse responsible the …show more content…

After checking on the patient, it is imperative to report the incident to the staff nurse but for more serious errors, it will be the responsibility of the nursing supervisor, department manager or director, nursing executive, executive administration, the physician, or any combination thereof. It is also the responsibility of the nurse to tell the patient and the patients’ family about the errors occurrence. When things go wrong, we need to plan the disclosure well, have empathy for the patient and family and improve processes and systems to prevent future errors (Myers , …show more content…

Nurses are most involved in medication administration, shortly before any adverse drug events may emerge. They also have the unique role of detecting and preventing errors that occurred in the stages of prescribing, transcribing, and dispensing. Since adverse drug events most often occur in the prescription, transcription, and/or administration stages, promoting patient safety should have multi-factorial approaches that involve more than direct-care nursing staff. Also, human factors are the primary underlying cause of medication errors. Therefore, professional education and clinical in-services with individual and system focuses on patient safety issues are essential (Tzeng, Yin & Schneider,

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