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.…
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.…
Medication errors compromise patient safety. Factors that relate specifically to nursing medication errors include acuity of patients and workload of nurses, distractions, and interruptions that can occur during medication administration. Medication errors underlying causes are inadequate staffing, time restraints, unit atmosphere, and exhaustion. Administering medications is one of numerous responsibilities of a registered nurse and is regularly fraught with disruptions. It was reported that every medication pass was disturbed because of other staff members, absent medications, and further patient care requirements.…
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…
In United States, each year nearly 7000 deaths occur due to medication error. These errors can occur at any stage of medication administration process such as prescribing, dispensing and administration. In the administration phase, a medication error occur when a health care professional administer the medication to a patient. These errors can be prevented by using Electronic Medication administration Record (EMR) along with a bar coding system. When a nurse administer medication to the patient, the EMR record all the medication administration details such as patient name, medication, strength, timing etc.…
Appendix 1 Nurse Perception of Medication Errors Modified Gladstone 2001 Why Do You Think Medication Errors Occur? 1. The following ten statements are all possible causes of medication errors.…
Hello, Amber~~ 10 years ago, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported that unnecessary deaths each year due to preventable medical errors up to 98,000 people. This report assessed from $ 17 billion to $ 29 billion has the cost of such errors. Some estimated 1.5 million medication error prevention cost for a full year, up to $ 3.5 billion to the hospital. While more than 25,000 medication errors, there are occurs, such as both look-like and alike similar drugs in in the four-year period. In order to decrease errors, The Joint Commission promote to the organization has launched a program designed in 2002, National Patient Safety Goal program, which was to address specific issues related to patient safety.…
Of all these medication errors 400,000 of these errors yearly have been reported that they could have been preventable (Hunter, 2011). The advantages of electronic medication administration records are that the five rights of medication administration are verified; when a medication that requires lab work the patient’s lab work will appear allowing the nurse to view the value before administering the medication; warning boxes appear when information does not match, for instance: “medication is for a different patient” (Hunter, 2011). During a study conducted by Karen Hunter published in the Online Journal of Nursing Informatics electronic medication administration records as well as barcoding systems where placed in hospitals. Sixty-two percent of the nurses stated they felt safer using the system and that the system actually prevented them from making a medication error (Hunter,…
Technology Informatics Over the years, hospitals have worked hard to decrease the amount of post-discharge medication errors. According to Allison et al. (2015), electronic medication reconciliation is a system created to help medication inconsistencies. These electronic medication reconciliation handouts are now part of Joint Commission on Accreditation standard requirements.…
The staffing of nurses needs to be increased for a decrease in medical and medication errors, reduced fatigue in nurses, and a decrease in patient complications. Medical and medication errors made by nurses are very dangerous. A medical error can be made by a nurse if they get patients mixed up. When getting patients mixed up, nurses will give treatments or medication to the wrong patients. Giving the wrong treatment can be dangerous depending on how big the treatment is.…
Research conducted by Gleason, Feinglass, & Lindquist (2010) set out to address the factors and effects associated with medication error during patient handoffs. The study included 651 adult inpatients with over 5,701 prescription medications. The investigators categorized the errors into both medication class and type of error. The researchers noted that as the number of medication errors increased, the percentage of affected patients decreased. Classification of medication errors were separated to omission, different dose, and different frequency.…
Medication error is defined by many different things, whether it is administering medication to the wrong patient or giving a patient too much of the medication ordered (Xu, C., 2014, p. 286). All medication errors should be held as an emergency and should always be reported. The use of technology is starting to be used to help minimize the amount of medication errors, but the nurse should not assume that the technology will not make mistakes (Xu, C., 2014, p. 286). The registered nurse should always double check the medication being dispensed is the medication on the written…
Hospital Strategies for Reducing Errors Hospitals are now working to reduce medication errors by the implementation of technology improving processes, identifying the medications errors casing the most harm, and creating an environment of…
The method that was used to collected the data was the PMAE survey tool. This tool surveyed random nurses whom self -reported medication errors. The nurses were told that this methodology was confidential. The three themes in the paediatric nurses were workload, ineffective communication, and distraction. According to the results of the study there were 2.3 more medication errors reported on medical floors than in intensive care units.…
Most errors are preventable by maintaining the six rights of medication administration rules. Medication errors lengthen hospital stays, and increase inpatient expenses. Preventing medication errors must start with educating the staff. Continuing education of the nursing staff can help reduce medication errors. Medications that are new to the hospital should receive high teaching priority.…