Effectiveness Of Pictograms, Interpretation And Adherence, Health Literacy

The intended use of medications is meant to improve a person’ health, it is very important the individual administering medication or self-medicating use the drugs correctly, by following the doctors’ instruction for the medication prescribed. Medication is given to diagnose, treat, and prevent illness. Medication can be very dangerous, which can potentially cause harm or even deaf if it’s not used properly.

1. In the workplace there is a generic Medication Management Policy and Procedures for Adult Services (Issue 10, 2012) document. This is kept to hand in a locked cupboard, readily available to read. It requires that all Healthcare Staff are given mandatory training and refreshers are provided. Legislation which surrounds the administration of medication includes The Medicines Act 1968, The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, The Data Protection Act 1998, The Care Standards Act 2000 and The Health and Social Care Act 2001

One of the critical core components of Skilled Nursing Facility is medication administration. As cited by Tenhunen, Tanner, and Dahlen (2014), they stated that 88% of the residents living in the nursing homes are aged 65 years old and older. They discussed that every five of administered medications in nursing home has one probability of error. This means that about half of the residents have the possibility of two or more medication errors daily. This applies to the Pasadena Care Center (PCC) because its residents are mostly older adults who require medications on a daily basis. Moreover, residents are prescribed with multiple medications, which make them vulnerable to medication errors. The staff at PCC is trying their best to ensure safe medication administration, however, it still in need of a major change. The goal of the proposed change is to decrease the medication errors in this organization to ensure patient safety.

The Medication Policy and procedure and Mars Handbook covers assessment of individuals’ needs, administering, storage, recording and disposal of medicines including their effects and potential side effects

Outcome measures assess whether the interventions to improve medication safety practice will be successful. During the interview of the new employee, competency evaluation related to medication administration will be applied first. In addition, during the orientation for these new employees, adequate training will be provided to ensure the importance of preventing medication errors. They will be given a list of similar and look-alike medications and will focus on medications that cause the most adverse reactions when errors may occur. Then, after training and when staff start working, they will be supervised during their first few months. When they are not supervised, they will be assessed and evaluated for any errors. During this process,

This article will look at two articles and focus on aspects of safety medication administration in nursing practice by the staff nurses. This is interesting area because the previous report on the medication administration error in the UK shows that approximately 5.6% of doses administered to adult hospital patients and it has been estimated that 0.6-1.2% of medication administration errors may lead to severe harm even death (Mcleod et al, 2013). Leape et al (1995) indicated that nurses were responsible for 86% of all medication error interception, regardless of the original errors. The nurses play the important role in identifying the causes of medication errors and preventing medication administration errors in nursing practice in order to provide safe care toward the service users (Henneman et al, 2010). The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA 2004) documented that the health professionals need to effectively and safely use medicines to ensure patients get the maximum benefit from the medicine; meanwhile minimizing the potential harm. This article will be critiqued on the different types of evidence which explored safety medication administration in the nursing practice toward service user. Using evidence is important in nursing practice because it can help nurses in addressing questions related to best possible care and improve patients’ outcome. It is embedded within the code the nurses are expected to use best possible evidence in the nursing

As clinical site co-ordinator with many years of clinical experience I feel competent in the drug administration via a variety of routes. Generally the patients I attend have become acutely unwell with most prescriptions not having the third eye of a pharmacist and most drugs being delivered intravenously. It is imperative therefore that the prescription and drugs always be thoroughly checked which relies on good communication throughout. Furthermore, most emergency drugs have a protocol for administration developed by the hospital. However within this situation the nurse is generally the last defence before any medication error actually occurs, therefore it is the nurses responsibility to ensure the prescription is correct and to challenge prescription written

This is a journal study to investigate the perceptions and opinions of the professional community pharmacy staff about the causes of dispensing errors and strategies to prevent these errors. A survey was completed by pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in 49 community pharmacies and the response rate was 90.9% (Lopes, Joaquim, Matos & Pires, 2015). Handwritten prescriptions were the most single cause of medication errors 51.5% and drugs with similar packages 45.6% (Lopes et al., 2015). Checking prescriptions and confirmation of drugs through barcodes was 97% which were the most agreed prevention methods (Lopes et al., 2015). This article would not only be useful to pharmacy personnel but to other health practitioners or students performing research. In addition, a study similar to this could serve as an example (initiative) that may benefit management. Such initiative would be implemented to help improve medication

In the modern age of technological and medical advancements such as organ transplants and robotic limbs, Americans have developed unrealistic expectations about prescription drugs. The false belief that the right pill in the right dosage can cure all has led to a national epidemic: over prescription. Since the 1970s, the average American’s expenditure on prescription drugs has doubled because not only are new treatments for almost every ailment now available, but they are also aggressively advertised on television, the internet, and social media. At the same time that the American population confronts health issues associated with rising age, obesity, and stress levels, prescription drugs promise a quick fix for everything from depression to acne to insomnia leading to a one pill fix all.

Prescribing in Australia is authorised by individual state and territory legislations that deal with drugs and poisons. These legislations allow various levels of health professionals to administer/supply medications under an assortment of protocols or direct order agreements. Any prescriber must also follow processes that have been determined by their professional bodies, which is legally binding in Australia. Legally, prescribers must also maintain all confidentiality and privacy clauses. Also, the patient’s health and wellbeing should be the focus of all decision making so that no-harm should come to the patient. The knowledge and skills obtained from the required training should be used to optimise patient’s health.

In the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report in 2006, Preventing Medication Error, more than 1/3 of the 1.5 million adverse drug events that were recorded in the United States each year occurred in an outpatient setting. Likewise, in 2008 IOM released a report that laid emphases on the need for setting universal standards within prescribing and dispensing practices. Multiple studies reported that an increased prevalence of patient adherence to taking prescribed medications can be compromised by their inability to comprehend or understand the directions for taking the medication (Wolf et al., 2016). The inability to understand and interpret prescription drug labels were recognized as the leading cause of a large proportion of outpatient medication error and adverse events, as patients may possibly accidentally misuse a prescribed

Your doctor’s directions in your prescriptions should be clear and well-explained to reduce the risks of medication

Automated medication dispensers may be the key for improved quality of care and safety for individuals who live in a community-based setting. Errors and adverse incidents related to medication use are becoming more common whether it is because of cognitive changes related to aging, substance abuse or simply just not taking medications as prescribed. A working definition of medication misuse for the purposes of this paper is the use of medications, illicit, prescribed, or over-the-counter, in a manner other than as recommended or directed (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013). It has been reported that in the United States alone, 105 people die each

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 provision of written medication information given to the patient helps significantly in cases of medication non compliance (McGraw & Drennan 2004). This is because it aids in memory retention and presents patients with access to a reliable source of concise medication information, particularly if the patient needs to be reminded of certain aspects (Gorgos 2006). These written medication information sheets need to be provided in the patients primary, dominant language because it reduces the difficulty and limits barriers to patient understanding (Gorgos 2006).This is important because this intervention aims to increase a patient’s understanding of their medications, and when a patient feels more competent with the use of their medications, reduced