Introduction Nurses are one of the most important people in the healthcare system. They handle just about everything that involves direct client care. They are also in charge of administering medication to clients under the order of the doctor or nurse practitioner. Sadly, the number of incidences involving medication errors are quite high. In this paper, I will talk about the numerous ways medication errors can occur and how nurses have a great role preventing them, in order to keep all clients in the healthcare system safe. Reducing Medication Errors in Nursing Practice This article touched on the countless ways that medication errors can occur. Medication errors are one of the most common sources of accidental harm to clients (Cloete, …show more content…
In the first article, the main focus is the cause of errors and what can help nurses to not make mistakes anymore. As a student nurse myself, I can relate and see the ways that these distractions occur. This article gave me an insight of what not to do and what I need to look out for. In Let 's do no harm: Medication Errors in Nursing Part 1, the article is more about the costs of medication errors and how it leads to the eventual loss of trust by clients in the healthcare system. It also talks about small ways that can contribute to making mistakes. By seeing the cost, it becomes easier to correlate how medication errors will not benefit the healthcare system, in more than one …show more content…
When I began to prepare and administer medication to my resident, it wasn 't much of a new experience. The one new thing I was taught about was the important six rights of medication administration. I had to research every single medication for the purpose and side effects of the drugs, as well possible nursing assessments that I would have to do before and after giving it to the resident. Making sure that I knew how the drug would affect my resident, as well as know how to administrate it, was extremely
In the world today registered nurses are expected to know about the drugs they administer, their indications, contradictions and adverse effects and correct doses. Any RN can rattle off the correct procedure for safe drug administration. Although, despite this knowledge the incidence of drug errors remain high (Tindale, 2007). A common drug error that occurs is between Amphetamine, which is a CNS stimulant and Propranolol, which is a beta blocker.
Medication nurse In my opinion I find that the benefits of the medication administration system outweigh the challenges. While using this system, I found it harder to make a medication error, compared to the system I was exposed to in the summer. For example, in the summer, we were required to count the narcotics and write the number on this sheet of paper. In comparison, while using the Pyxis Medstation, we are instead required to count the number of narcotics, enter it into the Medstation, and will be told if or if not we put in the correct amount.
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
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
Our solution to medication errors is here, it is just a matter of implementing it into our
Nurses go through extensive training on medication checks during nursing school, as well as, during the orientation phase of where they are employed. Even with this training it is important to remember that no one is perfect and there are going to be errors. Prevention of these errors is one of the main goals in the healthcare field. By looking at what causes these errors, we can start
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
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).
However, the most common medication errors are done by nurses. Researchers had identified that the reason for this is due to majority of the medication orders are carried out by nurses. In average nurses spends about 40% of their time in hospital just performing administration of medication only. Globally the incident of medication errors is high regardless whether it is developed or non developed countries. Studies had proven that approximately one third of medical complications are caused by medication errors.
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
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.
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.
It is not only a problem for outpatients; inpatients are victims of human error as well. Oftentimes when hospitals are understaffed and over worked, healthcare workers tend to make simple mistakes that cause not so simple problems for the patients’ wellbeing. In addition to polypharmacy, medication mix-ups are common. For example, in his article, “Medication Errors”, Michael Cohen explains how similar packaging can appear for prescription medications.
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.
Medication error is not something new in healthcare service. Researchers had identified medication error is the high numbers of incidents involving nursing practice. Thus, a proper and well designed organizational system should be in place for the process of administration of medication to minimize and prevent errors. Medication happens when there is a failure in the system. To my surprise when I did the write up for this paper I had came across many clinical practice guidelines on medication safety.