A Brief Note On The And Health Care

According to a cross-sectional study involving 237 nurses, approximately 65% of the nurses have made medication error. Only 31% of the participants reported medication errors. According to the study the most common type of reported errors were wrong dosage and infusion rate. The most common causes were using abbreviations of the drugs and similar names of the drugs. However, the study did not find any relationship between medication years and years of experience, age, and working shift. Yet study found association between intravenous injection and gender (Cheragi at al

Each year, roughly 1.5 million adverse drug events (ADEs) occur in acute and long-term care settings across America (Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2006). An ADE is succinctly defined as actual or potential patient harm resulting from a medication error. To expound further, while ADEs may result from oversights related to prescribing or dispensing, 26-32% of all erroneous drug interventions occur during the nursing administration and monitoring phases (Anderson & Townsend, 2010). These mollifiable mishaps not only create a formidable financial burden for health care systems, they also carry the potential of imposing irreversible physiological impairment to patients and their families. In an effort to ameliorate cost inflation, undue detriment, and the potential for litigation, a multifactorial approach must be taken to improve patient outcomes. Key components in allaying drug-related errors from a nursing perspective include: implementing safety and quality measures, understanding the roles and responsibilities of the nurse, embracing technological safeguards, incorporating interdisciplinary collaborative efforts, and continued emphasis upon quality control.

Medication errors are the leading cause of morbidity and preventable death in hospitals (Adams). In fact, approximately 1.5 million Americans are injured each year as a result of medication errors in hospitals (Foote). Not only are medication errors harmful to patients but medication errors are very expensive for hospitals. Medication errors cost America’s health care system 3.5 billion dollars per year (Foote).Errors in medication administration occurs when one of the five rights of medication administration is omitted. The five rights are: a) the right dose, b) the right medication, c) the right patient, d) the right route of administration, and e) the right time of delivery (Adams). Medication administration is an essential part of

As nurses, we are charged with providing the best possible care to our patients, meeting their needs and working towards positive outcomes. Nurses work with all ages, races, disease processes, every medication from A-Z, independently or with a team. Nurses take orders from physicians face-to-face, over the phone, and in writing. It may be shorthand, misspelled, or pronounced like you have never heard, and you must clarify it with the physician, the pharmacy, the patient’s chart, and the drug book before you administer. Some patient’s curse us, some praise us; We cry with

Before and after administration a nurse should provide a patient with information concerning medication and answer any concerns that a patient could be having regarding dosage and even special considerations (Glynda Rees Doyle, 2016).

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate and demonstrate the significance of lowering the nurse to patient ratio, while implementing quality health improvements. Today’s complex healthcare system faces a number of difficulties that affect the quality of patient care and safety. Current nurse to patient ratios are of increasing focus in today’s healthcare system. Nursing staffing ratios have an effect on numerous areas within nursing; however, one of the most profound is the effect on the quality of care delivered to the patients. For example, medication errors and prevention are important in all aspects of care. Appropriate time is needed to administer medications; however, with overworked nurses and overextended patients loads, nurses are pressed for time. Nurses have the opportunity and responsibility to make sure that their patients obtain quality of care through interventions that keep patient safety a priority. Strategies should include keeping nursing staffed at adequate levels and appropriate to the type of patient care. Furthermore, the patient’s acuity and the nurse’s assignment should be taken into consideration.

In healthcare today, when hospitals are judged upon patient safety standards, it is critical to prevent errors involving medication administration. Distractions while preparing and administering medications, has been report as one of the leading causes of medication errors. Distractions while nurses are administering medications can lead to poor patient outcomes and even sentinel events. Nurses and nurse managers are responsible for maintaining a unit with minimal distractions. When distractions are minimized throughout medication administration process, a decrease in medication errors will occur and lead to increased patient outcomes.

Although it may seem that the United States’ Healthcare is more improved than that of third-world countries and other places around the globe, hospital errors are still the third leading cause of death in America as of the last couple years (Hospital, 2013). Whether it is due to a miscalculation of drug dosages, an avoidable infection, or even caused by an accidental mistake because the nurse was overwhelmed with numerous assigned patients, it is still occurring and there must be a change. On occasion nurses on a typical medical-surgical floor may be required to care for 4 or 5 patients a

After a year in nursing school, drug administration and nursing responsibilities are firmly drilled into our heads. The 6 rights: right Medication right route, right time, right client right dosage, right documentation, and the right to refuse any medication. Before giving the medication the nurse must fully ensure that the patient knows what the medication is for and what to expect. The nurse must check the patient’s armband before administering medication, ask the patient to verify his name and date of birth, only administer meds the nurse has prepared herself, and if there is something the nurse is unsure about she should look it up or ask for help.

Drug administration forms a major part of the clinical nurse’s role. Medicines are prescribed by the doctor and dispensed by the

In today’s current fast-paced and demanding field of heath care, medication administration has become complex and time-consuming task. Approximately one-third of the nurses’ time is used in medication administration. There is much potential for error because of the complexity of the medication administration process. Since nurses are the last ones to actually administer the medication to the patient therefore they become responsible for medication administration errors (MAE). Reasons for MAE may include individual factors, organizational factors or system factors. This paper will discuss the root causes analysis of MAE and strategies to prevent them.

An analysis of given workloads in the event of medication errors in nursing was conducted by an exploratory-descriptive study with a quantitative approach. People who were part of the study had experienced some medication error in their work unit, with dose errors being the most frequent and the number of staff giving to the event of medication errors. Constructing successful ways to reach goals necessary to make something as small as possible in the event of medication errors and patient safety.

Managing the variety of interruptions throughout the day as a nurse is one of themain skills that need to be mastered. Inevitably people will want the nurse’s attention formultiple reasons, such as a family member asking for an update on their spouse. If thenurse is in the middle of medication administration, it is critical to communicateeffectively to other staff member, visitors and patients the importance of focusing on themedications given at that time to ensure patient safety. The nurse may need to delegatecertain tasks to other qualified staff members, in order to stay on time with medicationadministration for their patients. Preparing a priority list at the beginning of the shift willhelp organize the nurse’s schedule and be more likely

Medication error is one of the biggest problems in the healthcare field. Patients are dying due to wrong drug or dosage. Medication error is any preventable incident that leads to inappropriate medication use or harms the patient while the medication is in the control of the health care professional,or patient (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2015). It is estimated about 44,000 inpatients die each year in the United States due to medication errors which were indeed preventable (Mahmood, Chaudhury, Gaumont & Rust, 2012). There are many factors that contribute to medication error. However, the most common that factors are human factors, right patient information, miscommunication of abbreviations, wrong dosage. Healthcare providers do not intend to make medication errors, but they happen anyways. Therefore, nursing should play a tremendous role to reduce medication error

In the article it is supported that tiredness and fatigue are the main factors that contribute to medication mistakes respectively 25.3% and 16.5%. When nurses are tired it becomes difficult for them to focus on medication administration. Miscommunication is also major aspect that is associated with increasing MAEs rate. 16.5% errors were made by nurses because handwriting was not clear enough to read. Wrong time medication administration was the most common error 31.6%. It is identified that nurses believe that administering medication one hour later is not an error and they do not report unless patient safety is at risk. Documentation is also an important, illegal documentation can create confusion and misreading the names of drug and MAE