Electronic Medication Error In Long-Term Care

Recognizing, acknowledging, and understanding medication safety is important when administering medications. Understanding which medications are high-risk ones, being familiar with the medications being given, remembering the five most important rights when administering medications, communicating clearly, developing checking habits, and reporting the medication errors will lead to safe outcomes for the residents. However, errors do occur from a lack of experience, rushing, distractions, fatigue, doing too many things at once, not double checking, poor communication, and lack of team work. It is not only the staff that commit errors, but also the work environment that contributes to the medication error. Two examples are poor reporting systems

The documentary “Chasing Zero” reflects on the importance of quality care and patient safety. From the video, a child presents with jaundice, but the hospital fails to recognize immediate treatment. As a result, the child develops further complications such Kernicterus, which results in brain damage from jaundice (Quality and Safety Education for Nurses, 2014). Unfortunately, there were many devastating instances such as this, which could have been greatly prevented.

Electronic health record (EHR) system transformed the health care system from a paper based industry to one that uses clinical information to provide higher quality of care to the patients by providers. Electronic medical records have many benefits in clinical, organizational and societal outcomes. Clinical outcomes includes improvements in the quality of care and reduction of medical errors. Organizational outcomes include, financial and operational performance as well as higher satisfaction among patients and clinicians. Societal outcomes include, conduct research and attain improved population health. Adoption of EHR can improve quality and reduce the cost. Patient information is readily available on EHR and is accessible by any providers

There were specific situations that led to the cause of Julie Thao's actions of medication error and the death of Jasmine. The situation could have completely been avoided had Julie followed the code of ethics and avoided shorts to provide proper care for the patient. The state claimed that Thao's mistake was caused by actions, omissions and unapproved shortcuts, however, there were other factors that played a role in her carelessness as well. While failure to comply with procedure has been a factor in the medication administration error, other factors contributed as well. For example, failure to properly use the information system, or to ignore alerts or warnings have also resulted in preventable errors (Nelson, Evan, & Gardener, 2005). At the time of the event, a bar coding system for all medication had been in effect for a duration of two weeks, however, Thao had been gone one of those crucial weeks. Because of her absence, she did not receive the adequate training, instead, she received a sped

There are many stakeholders involved with health care administrations. Those stakeholders can be patients, health care physician, insurance providers, pharmaceutical manufactures, hospital organizations, community clinics and government. Each different stakeholder has their own individual vision of health care administration. This causes conflict due to the nature and differences in vision. which then can cause conflicts among each stakeholder involved. A patient is going to have a different idea of how a health care should be managed. This in contrast to the way a physician may think the administration should be managed. Furthermore, each different stakeholder involved would have their own ideal reasons to why the health care administration

In care settings the currently legislations, guidelines policies and protocols relevant to the administration of medication would be:

Amends the Public Health Service Act to make medication error information privileged for Federal and State administrative and civil judicial proceedings if the information is voluntarily submitted by a health care provider to a program, approved by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, for the purpose of developing and disseminating recommendations and information regarding preventing such errors (Medication Error Prevention Act, 2000).

Change is inevitable and constant in the modern world. Continuous advancement in technology is also changing the healthcare system to ensure patient safety and provide high quality patient centered care. The hospitals are adding more and more computer assisted devices and the nurses are facing new challenges every day. Change in the workplace means making changes in the work environment that is different from the current state. Implementing a change can create anxiety or fear of failure in nurses, which may lead to a resistance to change practice. “Changes to a system may be anticipated and planned, or they may be sudden and unexpected” (Yoder-Wise, 2015). The reimbursement

Preventable medical mistakes cause approximately 200,000 deaths around the United States each year. (1) More than 1,000,000 Americans are negatively impacted by medication errors each year caused by inadvertent mistakes in the prescription filling process. With 4 out of 5 adults taking at least 1 medication daily and 1 out of 4 adults taking 5 or more medications daily nationwide, errors like these cost healthcare industry billions of dollars per year.

Electronic Medical Records has several positive effects on the billing and coding process. For example, Electronic Medical Records helps to reduce cost for physicians and improve care for patients. Electronic Medical Records helps reduce medical errors for the physicians and unneeded diagnostic tests. The EMR can also help coordinate patient's information better such as diagnosis, medications, family history, and the test results of each patient on file. Electronic Medical Records helps to improve storing health information and EMR makes it easier to track results of each patient. The health care providers are able to quickly finish the patient charting. The Electronic Medical Records allows you to have flexibility to schedule more patients

A Medication error is defined as any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is under the control of the health care professional, patient, or consume. Therefore, any form of error that arrives within the healthcare system is deemed unacceptable. Now by understanding what a medication error entails, nurses are better able to place emphasis on how to prevent medication errors.

"Medication errors results from the interaction of multiple factors that include regulatory environment, organizational leadership and commitment, management policies and procedures, complexity of tasks involved, work culture, and physical environment" (Chaudhury, Mahmood, & Valente, 2009, p. 229). Health care services that nurses perform in the hospital environments are physically and psychologically intense, which can potentially result in burnout, stress, and medication errors. Crowded and poorly designed work spaces are factors that contribute to staff stress, resulting in the risk of increase medication errors (Chaudhury et al., 2009). Ulrich, Zimring, Quan, Joseph, and Choudhary, 2004 (as cited in Chaudhury et al., 2009) "argued that reduction of nursing staff stress and error by physical environmental dimensions (such as air quality, acoustics, lighting, and so on) can have a significant impact on staff health and efficiency" (p. 230). There is limited research on the how physical environment affects medication errors. For this study, the research question was: "What is the nurses' perception of the role of the physical

What is the estimated wholesale cost of the medication? The wholesale cost of the medication is $116.40.

Health Information Management (HIM) is the process of protecting, analyzing, inspecting and acquiring medical information such as health records, each time a patient is seen by a healthcare provider. The HIM professional is an important connection between doctors, nurses, patients, insurance companies and everyone in the medical field. Every time a healthcare professional sees and treats a patient, they record what they observed, how the patient was treated medically, and future steps in the treatment plan discussed between the patient and the healthcare worker. The medical record includes the patient’s symptoms, medical history that includes past, present, and family history, results of studies, such as x-ray reports, or lab results, diagnosis,

Technology has become an essential part of our everyday life therefore, it makes sense that doctors and hospitals get rid of the old fashioned paper charting and use technology to access patient records. Electronic health records (EHR) provide quick access to information, as doctors no longer have to wait for other providers to fax previous records to them. The accessibility of Electronic Health Records assist medical providers to make quick medical care decisions, by accessing previous care provided to patients including treatment and diagnosis. Quick access to information through EHR enables health care providers to treat patients faster as there is no need for records to be mailed or