Why Is Medication Safety Important

Improved Essays
Patient Safety in Medication Error “Five Rights”
Patient safety is what the health care system needs to uphold at all times. This is especially important when it comes to administering medication. Medication error is a very serious mistake that a nurse can commit and effect consequently the patient's stability. It is a nurse's duty to follow protocols and be responsible for what they're doing each step of their clinical care. Improve patient safety in medication error and in the healthcare system. Following the "Five Rights" of medication administration safety. The following steps are the right medication, the right dose, at the right time, by the right route and the right patient.

The Five Rights of Medication Administration
Nurses have a major responsibility in patient safety to administer the correct medication. Having the right medication involves checking the label thoroughly and accurately to avoid harming the patient a couple of times before. According to
…show more content…
The reason determines whether the patient is being treated to improve their health versus negatively affect it. A great way to double check is to ask another colleague or review to the calculations. According to the article, Walsh states that nursing students need more practice to calculate medication dosages and to obtain the correct answer in clinical and laboratory setting. I support this statement because it will minimize medical mistakes and practice these skills will provide in perfecting their calculations. The medication needs to reach at a specific level in the bloodstream to function properly. Another critical job for a nurse in medication error is giving the medication at the right time. Nurses have to be diligent in checking the patient's schedule. When monitoring their time to take their medication it is important to give medication at a certain time. So that the drug could be

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Professionals like doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses and others are well prepared on when to medicate patients. It is important to be familiarized and understand about the pharmacodynamics of the medication. Also, it needs to be understood medication need, how and when to give it, dosage and possible side effects. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, 2009), medication error accounts for 1.3 million injuries each year in the United States due to the wrong drug, dose, timing of administration, or wrong route of administration. Always keep in mind that route of administration varies depending on health conditions.…

    • 1070 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    If I were the hospital administrator, chief of the medical staff or the chief of nursing, I would implement stringent standards to follow that provide maximum protection which would ensure that the administering of medication is performed safely and efficiently. The most common errors reported by healthcare providers, are those that have to do with medication errors. The fact that nurses are often front line providers who are required to administer medication to patients (at the direction of doctors), it is imperative that instructions be followed to the letter and practices and procedures carefully executed to avoid medication errors, serious injury or loss of life. Some of the following practices could be seen as causes of medication errors; failure to notate an order change, negligence with giving injections, failure to administer the appropriate medication, medications with similar sounding names, the wrong dosage, the failure to cease or discontinue medication and administering medication to the wrong patient. According to Showalter (2017), Negligence occurs when a person fails to live up to accepted standards of behavior.…

    • 1455 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Reflective Summary

    • 116 Words
    • 1 Pages

    The purpose of this body of work was to address medication errors and safe medication administration practices in relation to practicing nurses and nursing students via several different approaches. These different approaches will be presented as three separate papers but interrelated themes. The specific purpose for each paper and the corresponding research questions were addressed individually in each chapter. The approach used in the first paper was a systematic literature search of medication administration errors and the pediatric population; five themes emerged including the incidence rate of medication administration errors, specific medications involved in medication administration errors and classification of the errors, why medication…

    • 116 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Medication safety standard ensure the safe administration of medication and improve the quality of care. Medication administration is a complex process and each step should be followed for patient safety and adhere to the standard guidelines. There are different factors that contribute to medication error such as interruptions, work load and fatigue. Newly graduate nurses make more mistakes because they have less experience and not be able to manage interruptions and distractions. But with the help of the technology error made during the communication can be minimized.…

    • 135 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Administering medications to patients is a daily task performed by almost all nurses. In the Bachelor of Nursing curriculum, the 7 rights and 3 checks of medication administration is taught, practiced and performed by all nursing students to ensure proper habits are developed. The problem occurs when health care providers are no longer under supervision of an instructor, and short cuts are acquired. These short cuts, although time saving, ultimately cause more complications for the patient and the health care system. As a group, we have found that CARNA’s Medication Administration Guideline (2016) is not being implemented or enforced as it should to prevent medication errors.…

    • 1087 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Electronic Medication Administration Record and Patient Safety One of the reason medication related deaths occur are due to medication errors (Karen, 2011, p. 1). In fact, within the United States, approximately 7,000 people die each year due to medication errors (Karen, 2011, p. 1). According to Karen (2011) 1.3 million medication errors occur yearly, which relates to several injuries and approximately one death a day related to medication errors in the Unites States (Karen, 2011, p. 1). One major cause of medication errors can be explained using the medication administration process (Mccomas, 2014, p.590). When a health care provider is responsible to administer a medication, there are approximately 50 to 100 steps involved in this process…

    • 962 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Research Critique Paper: Improving Patient Safety In this research article, regarding interruptions contributing to medication administration errors, the title was appropriate for the content the author discussed. The article described ways the nurse can decrease distractions and interruptions during medication administration, a high risk activity, which is a patient safety concern. This study is very important to the practice of nursing because patient safety is a top priority when giving medications.…

    • 591 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These medication errors are unintended but very much a factor within the profession of anesthesia providers. Medication errors are a concern not only to anesthesia providers but also nurses, doctors, and pharmacists. As a group they try to improve patient safety and reduce medication administration…

    • 2064 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    This Journal is based off a study that was done on frontline nurses. The nurses were emailed or mailed a survey about their perception about how and why medication errors occur. The article states that most frequently identified errors that occurs in healthcare comes from the United states and only 5 percent or less are reported. The main purpose was to examine their perceptions of why and how errors occur and to gain information about their personal experiences with medical errors. There are 5 reasons medication errors occur; distractions and interruptions during medication administration, inadequate staffing and high nurse/ patient ratios, illegible written medication, incorrect dosage calculations, and similar drug names and packaging.…

    • 139 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Statistics also state that nearly 1% of hospital admissions have an adverse drug event (Runciman, Roughead, Semple, & Adams, 2003)As a graduate nurse looking to continually improve and develop my practice I need to develop strategies that will help me progress towards this goal. This goal will help to prevent some of those adverse drug event and prevent some of the medication admissions entirely. Being in a position that is directly responsible and accountable for the administration of the medications in a lot of the cases means that I need to continually strive to improve and maintain a high level of medication management. I have already mentioned a few strategies that I believe will help me to continually develop those skills to a desired level. familiarising myself with the medication will help to reduce the risk of a medication error slipping through and effecting the patient.…

    • 1335 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The five rights consists of make sure they have the right patient, the right drug, the right dose, the right route, and the right time and if there is any discrepancy, the nurse needs to stop and correct it. Documentation is also important because if it was not written, it did not occur. Medication errors can affect the nurses in positive way. For example, I had an experience with a medication error during simulation lab, where I had the wrong dosage of a medication. I did not catch it until one of my team members brought it to my attention…

    • 1176 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rational for Reducing Medication Errors Medication errors are the most common cause of accidental harm to individuals. These errors contribute to side effects that compromise a patient’s safety and are a large financial problem to a facility. Preventing medication errors, which happen at every level of the medication administration process, is the primary concern for maintaining a safe and effective hospital. One third of all errors harming patients occur during medication administration and is determined a high-risk activity performed by the nurse (Cloete, 2014). Safe and effective medication administration is key to quality patient care and facility operations.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A pharmacist’s job requires accuracy. Sloppiness has severe consequences. When a pharmacist fills a prescription, he needs to not only give the right medicine, but he needs to give the right medicine in the right dosage.…

    • 228 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nurses are known to be great multitaskers, but their multitasking skills can also lead to medication administration errors. Previous documentations have shown that while multitasking, distractions and interruptions have been a main cause for nurses to perform a medication administration error (MAEs). MAEs are to be taken very seriously. MAEs can cause harm to the patients and maybe even lead to lifelong injuries or even death (Rassin, Kanti, & Silner, 2005; Treiber & Jones, 2010). Researchers are trying to put together a plan that would be implemented in facilities to help reduce MAEs.…

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When this is done incorrectly, it results in it being the most common reason for a competence notification to the Nursing Council (Cook, 2014). Some factors that can lead to administering of medication errors are loss of concentration, interruptions, not following the proper procedure, stress in the workplace, being understaffed and the nurses health status (Cook, 2014). It is why critical thinking is needed to avoid these errors in medication, but also in patient care. Her understanding of nursing practices allowed her to question the soundness of the care plan change, and realize that it made no sense in the circumstances. Having observant nurses, that take care to understand their patients care plans and treatments, protects the patients from mistakes that can occur in such a large organization.…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays