In Summarizing The Results Section By Authors Haw, Stubbs,

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 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

Exploration of the concept of Medication Administration errors (MAEs) especially regarding Insulin and what contributes to New Grad Nurses (NGN’s) becoming second victims, and the impact of it on and its effects on their nursing. Nearly 1 in 3 hospitals that have patients with diabetes are affected by Medication Errors (National Diabetes Inpatient Audit, 2012). Controlling and managing glucose is essential as some health care professionals often overlook proper handling of this and most common error that occurs is over dosing, under dosing or complete omission of insulin administration (CITE), overlooking this can have a serious impact on the patient well-being and also on the health care team. In the case of MAEs, there are three (3) types of victims involved; firstly is the patient and their family, next would be the nurse or health care professional, lastly it would be the involved health care organization which is involved. In regards with the topic NGN’s are considered second victims in these cases, second victims is defined as a “health care provider involved in an anticipated and/or adverse event in which there has been a medical error, and/or a patient related incident or injury who has become victimized in a sense of that the provider is traumatized by the said event” (Dekker, 2013).

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

Some errors affects patient minimally, whereas other medication errors results in patient morbidity and mortality. Despite the efforts, medication errors remains problematic in the area of healthcare. It is the health care organizations biggest challenge. Numerous research has been done to identify factors that would reduce medication error, however the emphasis on error management has been minimally to nonexistent (Admi, et al., 2013).

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 (

Ellenbeck et al. (2004) conducted a study to identify nurses’ experiences and perceptions regarding medication and associated adverse outcomes related to polypharmacy. This non-experimental, descriptive study containing quantitative and qualitative data was used to determine the nurses’ observations and experiences. The sample included 101 home health care nurses from 12 agencies, who reported on 1467 patients. The collection of data was from the nurses’ responses to the questionnaire and surveys regarding medication management. The results of the study revealed 78% of the patients were at risk for medication error and 5% of the patients reported adverse effects of medications due to polypharmacy. In addition to lack of medication education, nurses reported that 5% of the patients were taking medications in which they did not have an order for, 9% of the medications were prescribed by more than one provide, and 5% of the patients medication orders were not updated in their records. The study also revealed that the nurses’ observations included older

The reading that was most interesting to this writer was the Point of Care article written by M.C. LaFerney (2017). He discusses an issue which is very relevant for nursing and nurse leadership. The article elaborates on a nurse reporting to a psychiatric mental health clinical nurse specialist (PMHCNS-BC) that one of her patients is depressed and he should be evaluated. There was no supporting evidence provided by the nurse for the referral. In this writer’s opinion the article respectfully develops and distinguishes an ongoing practice by many nurses; hastily diagnosing mental health issues with either lacking, or no evidence. The caveat is that readers understand the difference between nursing diagnosis and medical diagnosis within

Errors pervade in our lives whether it is our home, in our workplace, or in our society. The effects of healthcare errors have impacted all our lives either directly or indirectly. Patient safety and quality care are at the core of healthcare system which strongly depends upon nurses. “To achieve goals in patient safety and quality, thereby improve healthcare, nurses must assume the leadership role. Nurses need to ensure that they and other healthcare providers center healthcare on patients and their families. Even though the quality and safety of healthcare is heavily influenced by the complex nature

Despite the implications of staff working under resources, all professional nurses have the driving key role to turn over the past events of failure resulting in extremely poor care standards among the poor culture of Mid Staffordshire and Winterbourne hospitals. For example; by displaying good communication skills both verbal and non- verbal, it benefits the role of a nurse to the extent that it is extremely important that nurses when administering medication explain the name of the medication, what it is used for, how effective is, and all the benefits of taking or the disadvantages of refusing the medication (Cummings,

In the healthcare profession practice is guided by ever-evolving research that helps determine best practice policies and protocols, allowing clinicians to provide the best care possible to their clients. However, much of psychiatric nursing care is characterized by subjective or immeasurable interventions and thus, important areas such as the benefits of therapeutic time with clients are relatively understudied and may also be undervalued. As psychiatric nurses I believe that our therapeutic communication skills are one of our most valuable tools, just as important as the medical interventions that we also carry out. For this paper the article I will be reviewing is Thomson and Hamilton 's (2012) qualitative study " Attitudes of Mental

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.

Many were reprimanded by verbal or documentation measures which was placed in their personnel files. One sixth of the hospitals had no documentation or disciplinary action in place. One fourth were either suspended or terminated as their form of disciplinary action, and legal action was never used. Many of the hospitals listed medication errors which had caused harm (42%), and death (40%) in personnel files. However, 34% of the other hospitals did not put any form of documentation of medication errors in any personnel file. There were a difference of three fourths between errors caught and not caught before the medication leaves the pharmacy and reaches the patient.

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

Every day there is a constant trust adhered to many different people in the profession of Nursing—the decision of what will help patients in terms of medicine, and the confidence to make these decisions. One false act or one slight misdiagnoses of medication to a patient could be the prime factor in whether the patient lives or dies. Nurses in hospitals across the country are spread thin, and thus makes the probability of mistakes higher. If a medicinal dose is off by even one decimal a patient could die, so the only real answer is for nurses to not be afraid to ask for assistance, always follow procedure and voice opinion is they feel something is wrong.