Importance Of Errors In Providing Correct Medication

Medication errors are one of the leading causes within a patient care setting thatcan jeopardize the client’s safety, and can even potentially be fatal. The six patient rights,right dose, time, route, medication, patient and documentation, all help prevent errors andpromote patient safety. The nurse needs to check off each patient right in order tosuccessfully pass medications. One of the leading causes for missing one of these patientrights is interruptions in the process of medication administration prep, or when activelygiving the medication to the patient. This paper will discuss why interruptions duringmedication administration can cause errors, and interventions the nurse can do to avoidputting the patient in

rights, health, and safety of the patient.” This provision, identifying patients, medication safety are related because it is a nurse’s responsibility to protect the patient from harm and promote safety. Nurses are taught to use multiple checks before administering a drug and use two identifiers. These checks include checking the medication against the order when obtaining it, checking again when preparing the medication and the last check is done at the patient’s bedside prior to giving the medication. Also it is imperative to question any medication order that does not seem fit. The order should include a date, time, name of the medication, dosage strength, the route for

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.

One of the biggest issues regarding nursing, medicine, and healthcare today is that of patient safety and medication administration and its impact on providing effective care, especially to the elderly. Anytime a patient is to receive a medication, several checks must be taken in order to ensure that the patient receives not only the appropriate type but also the correct dose. This is of utmost importance with regard to high-risk medications, such as warfarin. As a mainstream drug that is used for the treatment and prevention of coagulation in the blood, any medication error can be potentially disastrous or even fatal. As a result this, several studies have been conducted over the years in order to mitigate some of these errors and how best to incorporate consistent strategies that are both ensure patient compliance and safety, but that are also cost-effective, as well.

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 issues addressed are Findings 1 and 3: Finding 1 is patient medication errors are up and there is a perception of shady hiring practices and playing favorites. All employees are responsible for compliance. Policies and professional standards exist for the medical profession. The challenges will be reintroducing employees to Federal and state law that govern the profession. For hiring practices and playing favorites the challenges faced are the lack of compliance reporting structure or training for understanding compliance. There is a perception that work rules are not being enforced. Finding 3 is high job turnover and low employee morale. The challenges faced will be building communication strategies, building confidence in leadership,

Medication errors are among the most common medical errors, harming and costing millions of patients in the world very year. Prevention of medication errors is, therefore, a high priority worldwide. Nowadays, various information technology (IT) systems are widely used to prevent and reduce medication errors. Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) with patient-specific decision support is one of the most powerful IT systems used by physicians to improve patient safety in various healthcare settings. As an example, application of CPOE systems has significantly reduced errors related to dosing of psychoactive medications. Pharmacy dispensing systems, including drug-dispensing

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.

“Any error in the process of prescribing, dispensing, or administration of a drug, irrespective of whether such errors lead to adverse consequences or not, are the single most preventable cause of patient Harm.

When I say this, however, most people would picture the nurse giving the wrong medication due to lack of focus on the tasks at hand. While this could happen, I have noticed during my time at hospitals that the doctor orders are still hand written for the most part. Consequently, they can be very hard to be read legibly much less correctly translated into proper medication dosages. The first suggestion I would give to an organization would be that they required all orders to be submitted securely, by the doctors, to the pharmacy be electronic means.

According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA 2009), the wrong route of administrating medication accounts for 1.3 million injuries each year. An article published in September issue of the Journal of Patient Safety estimates there are between 210,000 and 400,000 deaths per year associated with medical errors. This makes medical errors the third leading cause of deaths in the United States, behind that comes heart disease and cancer. To prevent medical errors always follow the Three Checks and most importantly the Rights of Medication Administration. The “Rights of Medication Administration” helps to ensure accuracy when administering medication to a patient. When administering medication the administer should ensure they have the Right Medication, Right Patient, Right Dosage, Right Route, Right Time, Right Route, Right Reason, and Right Documentation. Also remember the patient has the right to refuse, assess patient for pain, and always assess the patient for signs of effects.

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

One study had investigated reasons for the occurrence of medication errors, which included distractions, failure to identify the correct patient, similar names of medications and miscalculated doses (Mayo & Duncan, 2004). These factors are preventable measures that registered nurses have absolute control of. By following the fundamental framework of the “five rights”, it can prevent an error to occur and ultimately prevent a patient from harm. This framework is beneficial while educating nursing students but it is also important that novice nurses and experienced nurses continue to follow the “five rights” because it sets the fundamental guideline of what should be identified at each process.

Medication errors result in over 700,000 emergency department visits each year in the United States, and nearly two-thirds of these hospitalizations are due to accidental overdose (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). Missed doses or overdoses are one of the problems related to medication safety (Anthony, 2015). A medication error is any act or occurrence which causes or leads to a patient receiving inappropriate medication treatment (Potter & Perry, 2014). Errors can occur due to failure to follow procedures related to medication administration, lack of communication between healthcare staff, deciphering illegible handwriting and underlying system factors, such as distractions and time constraints (Potter & Perry, 2014). Technological advances such as networked computers and other innovations have been placed in hospitals to study its impact on medication adherence; the following paper will compare and contrast these findings.

Nurses were required to confirm the right patient, medication, dosage, time, and route. The five rights aided in the process but errors were still made. Nurses working long hours, mandatory overtime, budget cuts, increased patient nurse ratio, and high patient acuities are also noted to contribute to the increase of errors. For many of these issues there is not a quick remedy. Geiger shared the elimination of retribution for medications errors would help decrease the effects associated with medication administration.