A Cloud Based Electronic Medication Record

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.

When it comes to medication errors several things may occur such as adverse drug event, unexpected deterioration, and even death in severe cases. AHRQ (2015) states, “an adverse drug event (ADE) is defined as harm experienced by a patient as a result of exposure to a medication, and ADEs account for nearly 700,000 emergency department visits 100,000 hospitalizations each year.” There are many ways that errors may occur such as dispensary errors, prescription errors

In the UK, there are more than 1 billion scripts prescribed and dispensed every year (HSCIC, 2013). There are over 12,000 pharmacies in the UK, and approximately 1.6 million people visit a pharmacy every day (HSCIC, 2013). It is therefore natural to assume that between these 1 billion prescriptions, an error or mistake will be made. Current studies suggest that of all the dispensed medicines, there are approximately 0.01-3.32% errors made in community pharmacy and 0.02-2.7% in hospital pharmacy (James et all, 2009).

In Australian hospitals medication administration errors make up 9% or 1 in10 of all medication administrations. These errors include wrong doses, wrong intravenous infusion rates and errors made by prescribing doctors. Errors on discharge of patients were increasingly higher with up to 2 errors per patient related to doctors transcribing discharge medications (Roughead, Semple, & Rosenfeld, 2016).

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

Medication errors are focused on: terms and definitions; incidence of and harm; risk factors; avoidance; disclosure, legalities & consequences (Wittich, Burkle & Lanier, 2014). Medication errors categories have been developed by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). Examples of these categories are based on prescribing, omitting drugs not administered, timing, unauthorized drug, wrong dosage, wrong preparation, expired drug, not using laboratory data to monitor toxicity (Wittich, Burkle & Lanier, 2014). Additionally, this article examines in depth common causes leading to medication errors, drug nomenclature, similar sounding drugs, unapproved abbreviations and handwriting, medical staff shortages and manufacturer medication shortages. Even though this article provides an informative overview for physicians, other allied health personnel may benefit too. This is valuable knowledge for the health care professional not just physicians in order to provide safe care for their

Errors made while administering medications is one of the most common health care errors reported. It is estimated that 7,000 hospitals deaths yearly are attributed to medication administration errors.

Medication errors in the hospital setting have significant potential to result in serious injury and even death, thus effecting patients, families, health care professionals, and hospitals. Approximately 400,000 adverse drug effects (ADE) occur each year (Institute of Medicine, 2006). Considering that not all medication errors are discovered and reported, this number is likely to be underestimated. These errors not only contribute to patient morbidity and mortality, but also cause increased length of stay and hospital expenses. It is estimated by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) that $3.5 billion is spent annually as a result of ADEs (IOM, 2006).

There are many factors that contribute to medication errors resulting in consequences to both patient and nurse. Factors that can contribute to errors include illegible handwritten drug orders, confusing drug names, and the use of nonstandard or unclear abbreviations (Neal, 2006). For the patient, the effect of drug errors can range from no side effects to death. For the nurse who commits a medication error the consequences can range from additional training and supervision to lawsuits and revocation of licensure. Medication errors can occur at any stage in the process of delivering medications to patients, from the originating prescriber to the pharmacy, but the majority of medication errors occur during administration.

For many patients the scariest part of being in the hospital is having to rely on other people to control your life changing decisions. One large part of this is the medications one is given while in our care. I can only imagine what it must be like for patients to have a stranger to come in and start administering drugs to me. This would be especially scary if I did not know what these medications did, or what negative effects could be caused by taking them. Unfortunately, the fear of medication errors that many patients have are not unfounded. Estimates range from 1.5 to 66 million patients a year have medication errors occur while they are in the care of health care professionals. Considering all of the technology we have at our

Healthcare can be known for a complex industry. Every day is a new day facing complicated clinical administrative transactions with electronic medical records and safety? Health Information technology is suppose to realize errors using electronic medical records. Leaders must understand the complexity and safety issues in order to help mandate electronic medical records with design, development, implement and use. In the last decade, this article has informed executives, clinicians, and technology. Their main focus was on these three areas computerized physicians order entry. Their main focus was to work all three areas computer physician order entry, computer decision support system,

“According to the Institute of Medicine’s Preventing Medication Errors report, the average hospitalized patient is subject to at least one medication error per day” (Barnsteiner, 2008, p. 2-459). A patient’s home medication regimen is frequently continued during hospitalization. It is often found that during the process of interviewing a patient to collect all relevant data associated with their medication history, over 60% of inpatients had at least one error on their prior to admission medication list (Salanitro et al., 2012). The many challenges and current inability to accurately identify medications taken at home can lead to potential adverse events. “An adverse drug event (ADE) is defined as harm experienced by a patient as a result

It is revealed that more mistakes are made in prescription and these mistakes associated with adverse drug reaction (ADR). To avoid prescription mistakes, in some health care settings pharmacist take that responsibility of correcting medication errors related with wrong drug, wrong dose, and prescription of allergic

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

The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA 2010), defines a drug error as ‘any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate use of patient harm. Although not all drug errors have lead to patient harm it is important to recognise that if a mistakes has been