Understanding Medication Safety

This article define medication errors and when occur these medication administration errors (MAEs) such as one or more of the seven rights of medication administration (right patient, right drug, right dose, right time, right route, right reason and right documentation) are violated. Moreover, the writers suggest study more about nurses’ knowledges with and perceptions on preventing MAEs through this journal. Wulff, K., Cummings, G. G., Marck, P., & Yurtseven, O. (2011). Medication administration technologies and patient safety: a mixed-method systematic review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 67(10), 2080-2095.

Principles for safe medication administration: • All medications must be administered according to a physician’s orders. • The medication orders must be clear, legible and not open. • The same person should select, prepare, administer and record the administration. • Doses must be prepared for only one patient at a time, immediately before the intended use • Medications should be prepared for immediate administration to a single patient and not retained for later use due to the risks of contamination, potential instability, potential mix-up with other medications and to maintain security of the medication • All medications must be stored in patient care areas in the same container as received from pharmacy. • All RNs and ENs without notation must successfully complete the Medication Assessment Paper prior to administering medications.

Lesson 7 Small-Group Discussion. Patient Safety Step 1 In a report by the Institute of Medicine (2006), Titled, Preventing Medication Errors, “The committee concludes that there are at least 1.5 million preventable adverse drug events (ADE’s) that occur in the United States each year.” These numbers are astonishing given the number of adults that are taking prescription medications daily. Most of the errors occur during the prescribing and administering steps and during an average hospital stay, a patient can expect to have one medication error occur every day (Institute of Medicine, 2006).

Interview on Reporting Medication Errors This assignment is about interviewing and discussing with a pharmacist methods to report medication errors per facility’s policy and ways to encourage nurses to report medication errors promptly. This was a face-to-face interview with pharmacist BB at work. He is a qualified professional pharmacist and appropriate for this assignment.

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.

The studies reviewed are: Medication errors: classification of seriousness, type, and of medications involved in the reports from a University Teaching Hospital (Dalmolin, Rotta, & Goldim, 2013), Types and causes of medication errors from nurse 's viewpoint (Cheragi, Manoocheri, Mohammadnejad, & Ehsani, 2013), and Prevalence and Nature of Medication Administration Errors in Health Care Settings: A Systematic Review of Direct Observational Evidence (Keers, Williams, Cooke, & Ashcroft, 2013). The remaining data reviewed consisted of peer reviewed articles, they were the following: The Effect of a Safe Zone on Nurse Interruptions, Distractions, and Medication Administration Errors (Yoder, Schadewald, & Dietrich, 2015), Celebrating Human Resilience to Provide Safe Care (Moffett & Moore, 2011), and A New Mindset for Quality and Safety: The QSEN Competencies Redefine Nurses ' Roles in Practice (Sherwood & Zomorodi,

While I am in school I’ll always be sure to focus on my courses so I am able to obtain as much information about becoming a pharmacy technician and prevent any errors from happening. In conclusion, in all healthcare settings medical errors occur but it doesn’t only effect the person responsible: all members of the healthcare team are affected. Pharmacy technicians are also capable of identifying any potential or actual errors and report it before the medication is distributed. Since patient safety is universal among all other healthcare practitioners is it important for them to advocate a safe and healing environment for patient

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.

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.

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

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 are defined as faults in drug prescribing, transcribing, dispensing, monitoring, ordering, and/or administration. These errors have significant potential for injuring or even killing a patient. Discussed below is an article that highlights the dangers of inaccurate drug administration.

Our solution to medication errors is here, it is just a matter of implementing it into our

Strategies are methods or plans that solves a problem; strategies are essential to resolve issues to be able to prevent them from happening again and it helps to do a better job. Computerized physician’s order, electronic medication administration record with a barcode and reviewing the practice standards from CNO such as medication and documentation are the suggested strategies to inhibit the incidents and the breached ethical values from occurring again. Moreover, using information technology is the first strategy to impede medication error in the long-term care facility where an ethical value such as commitment to client was breached.

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).