Cause of Nursing Medication Errors Rebecka Rodriguez Adventist University of Health Sciences Abstract: Nursing medication errors were examined by having nurses take surveys based on their perception of why medication errors are occurring as well as visiting their work setting and observing any errors. Nurses are encouraged to take precaution when administering medications to ensure that the correct medication as well as the dose, is given to the correct patient. It is imperative for hospitals to enforce medication stipulations to ensure that nurses are double checking medication labels. Studies show that causes of medication errors are due to nurse’s not understanding protocol, administration errors related to overworked weary …show more content…
Similar results were seen in data collected from thirty eight nurses by conducting separate interviews to explain the occurrence of faults when giving medications. One of the simplest tasks that patients entrust their nurse to be performing before administration of medications is, checking that the medication correlates to the patient. It is imperative for all nurses to be participating in double checking medications to ensure it corresponds with the patient. In this study paediatric nurses participated in interviews to see if nurses are truly checking medications. Furthermore, home healthcare nurses were studied to verify their perception on protocol for double checking medications. Lastly, it is apparent that many nurses are not aware of what protocol is for their work facility. Similarly, in the previous study, double checking medications is protocol for most if not all healthcare facilities. This study asked nurses questions about them double checking medications and how often do they perform it. It seems that not all nurses are on the same page with what precautions need to be addressed in order to ensure safe drug management. In both studies nurses were able to confess that many were not certain of the exact stipulations that needed to be met by their
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
Medication errors are preventable and cause great harm to the patients and their families. Every year in Australian hospitals, medication errors occur as nurses do not follow the 9 rights of medication administration. The 9 rights are right patient, drug, route, time, documentation, response, action and form (Fossum et al., 2016). Medication errors can be caused by
In regards to the survey information the hospitals gathered, many of the hospitals shared the same strengths and weaknesses, with a few notable exceptions. Areas that were consistently low throughout all the hospitals were cleanliness of the hospital as well as noise level, an aspect which pharmacists do not have control over. An area in which they do have control over is if a patient’s medications are explained to them, which was a weakness of a majority of the hospitals. An area where the hospitals showed a collective strength was communication with doctors and nurses. A synergistic relationship between nurses, doctors and pharmacists will change this weakness of medication education to a strength.
The evidenced based problem that was identified for this research assignment, was that nurses were causing multiple medication errors in a clinical and practice setting. According to the authors Wolf, Hicks, and Serembus (2006), a medication error is defined as any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer. It is very important for experienced nurses and nursing professors to identify medication errors to prevent them from harming the patient. Some of the errors that were identified were not reported because registered nurses didn’t want their peers to
There are many different variables that go into a scenario of a medication error. Nurses carry a huge role with ensuring patient safety during a medication administration. According to Härkänen, Ahonen, Kervinen, Turunen and Vehviläinen-Julkunen (2015), the study that was performed on a medical surgical floor yielded information that allows administration to examine plausible reason behind the medical errors. The area within nursing that need to have an improvement is reducing patient medical errors due to patient to nurse ratio in combination with reducing distraction and acuity. The study that performed by Härkänen et al. (2015), observed that patients had medications of upwards to 20 regular medications, and giving them 3 times minimally. Nurses encounter many types of distractions during the times that they are administering medication. The first issue with this is that the patient has high acuity
The study involved eleven consenting registered nurses in an acute medical/surgical setting in Australia. Popescu, the primary researcher observed the nurses over a three month period in 2007. Popescu observed the nurses during the medication administration process and their social interactions. The study reported, nurses tend to deviate from best-practice guideline when medications are kept in a communal medication room, where frequent distraction can occur. Analysis of the data discovered three chief factors that influenced the safety and quality of medication administration were ward design, therapeutic relationships, and deviations in best practice
To determine the level of competency of nurses during medication administration facilities should provide competency exams to nurses that focus on medications administration procedures. Competency and education of medication administration in nurses should be assessed during orientation and on a yearly basis. Medication administration is one of the most common duties nurses have in hospitals. According to the New Zealand Medical Journal, most of the injuries and adverse reactions that result from the wrong medications or doses given could have been prevented through safer medication practices and education (p 63). The Institute for
As a leader in the workplace, medication errors mostly occur when the workplace is understaffed with a patient load of full nursing cares that require more attention and care than patients who are independent. Due to being understaffed with a patient load of 13 to 2 nurses, medication errors occur more often as nurses are being rushed to finish all cares within their work timeframe. To decrease medication errors it is important to implement more staff during medication rounds, thus giving nurses additional time to concentrate and assure that the correct medication and dose is being given to the right patient ( ). The 6 medication rights are important to implement into every workplace as it decreases the chances of administrating medication to the wrong patients ( ). The medication right include; ______________________________________________________________ ( ). Medication errors have important implications for patient safety and in improving clinical practice errors to prevent any adverse events (
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.
Those nurses may not have acquired the skills necessary to anticipate the needs of the team members. Moreover, they may not have learned how to cooperate, communicate, and integrate care. And, they fail to evaluate and adjust to their actions and are not able to give and receive feedback. They do not apply their knowledge and critical thinking to understand the current situation and how to act upon it. Some of the other factors that also contribute are lack of awareness of errors, lack of willingness to report errors, faulty memory, poor communication skills, or lack of patient knowledge, patient diagnosis and the names, purposes, and correct administration of the medication (Carlton & Blegen, 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.
Mion and Sandhu (2016) stated “at the individual level, nurses must practice safe medication administration behaviors prior to every administration of every medication: compare the medication to the medical administration record, label the medication throughout the process, check two forms of patient identification, immediate documentation, and explain to patient” (p. 154). By following the 7 rights of medication administration, nurses can reduce the number medication errors. Nurses are held accountable for the medication that they are administering and must “continually
One of the greatest fears of any nurse is harming or killing a patient by making a critical medication error. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration reports that a person dies accidently every day from a medication error and approximately 1.3 million sustain an injury from medication errors (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2016). Medication errors can result from the initial prescribing of the order, transcribing the order, entering the order, dispensing the medication, repackaging the medication with improper labeling, administering the medication incorrectly,
Medication errors have always been a problem; even today they still loom about health care facilities such as hospitals and assisted living homes. A medication error is as an error in the process of providing care for a patient that has potential to harm the patient. There also many different ways those medication errors can occur, prescription, preparation, distribution, transcription, administration and monitoring. “It has been estimated by the Institute of Medicine that medication errors cause 1 of 131 outpatient and 1 of 854 inpatient deaths,” (Wittich et al, 2013). Of those different ways medication errors can happen, all of them have multiple factors that go into them that can cause an error to occur. Medication errors cause many
As a result medication errors are costly and seem to be relative to the staffing of nurses. Given that nurses make up such a large segment of the staff population, it is important to identify with the factors behind these medication errors.