Introduction In this paper, a meaningful clinical event, regarding delayed medications, is examined. The paper explores the importance of right-time administration and explores the causative factors and preventative measures of wrong-time errors. As a final point, I describe how I would handle the scenario differently after learning strategies to reduce late medication administrations, thus reducing patient harm. Look Back/Elaborate During week five, I was assigned to two patients (A and B), one of whom is a shared client (patient B) between me and a colleague. Strategically, my colleague and I planned out the first half of the shift, such that we would perform vital signs and head-to-toe assessments first, administer medications in …show more content…
In the event, I felt distressed and frustrated because I failed to perform daily tasks on time, most importantly medication administration. Furthermore, these emotions were heightened by feelings of not being able to deliver the best possible care and thoughts of my nurses being disappointed in me because of my poor performance. Essentially, these negative feelings arise from my values and beliefs of being punctual and providing safe and high quality care. These values are shaped by my family and profession as I was always disciplined and taught the importance of being on time and promoting patient safety, respectively. Essentially, one significant key issue from the event previously discussed, relates to my inability to deliver medications at the specified time. It is important to administer drugs on time to maintain patient safety, since late medications may result in ineffective treatments and unstable patient conditions. Analysis As previously mentioned, right-time medication administration is important to prevent patient harm. Medications are considered late when they are delivered beyond 30 minutes of the scheduled time or depending on the hospital policy. Certain medications, such as antibiotics and Parkinson disease drugs, follow strict schedules to provide and maintain therapeutic blood levels. In particular, antibiotics should be administered on time to prevent bacterial resistance and
My clinical duties performed this shift involved practicing time management and reporting skills. That morning, I was responsible for getting a detailed hand off report of the three patients during our walking rounds. I then went on the computer charting system to acquaint myself with the three patients and get organized with my plan of care for the day. This also involved reviewing the laboratory results and active physician orders for all patients. For the active physician
Daily drug dosages are given at specified times during a day, such as twice a day (b.i.d.), three times a day (t.i.d.), four times a day (q.i.d.), or every 6 hours (q6h), so that the plasma level of the drug is maintained at a therapeutic level. (BOOK )Medication timing also accounts for medication errors and is of the utmost importance while administering medication to a patient. Timing of medication delivery to patients is arranged strategically though pharmacy according to the physician’s orders. Attention is placed on the type of medication along with interaction a medication may have with other prescribed medication on a patients chart. Nursing are pulled in many different directions, answering physcians calls, admitting new patient and dealing with emergent situations that often times takes them off schedule. It is impossible to give every patient on the floor medication at the expected time charted on the electronic medication chart. Most facilities allot nursing staff the flexibility to pass medication one hour before and one hour after medication stated due on the electronic record. Performing the necessary research for hospital facility guidelines as regards to medication distribution and abiding by those, help illuminate medication time errors. Giving medication at the appropriate rate encompasses the appropriate time of delivery. Correctly determining how fast are slow a
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 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
Nurses on the Progressive Care Unit (PCU) experience many interruptions during patient care, including medication administration. These interruptions can affect proper and safe medication passage. The time taken to manage interruptions can be diverted back to the patients to assist in safe medication administration.
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).
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 (
A major concern or challenge of ABC hospital is a recent incident of medication administration error in its emergency room (ER) which almost resulted in the death of a 55-year-old female patient. This is a case of medication administration through the wrong route. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines a medication error 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. Such events may be related to professional practice, health care products, procedures, and systems, including prescribing; order communication; product labeling, packaging, and nomenclature; compounding;
As defined by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA, 2015), a medication error is “any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or harm to a patient.” In order to prevent harm by medications, nurses and nursing students alike are required to adhere to the “seven patient rights,” which help eliminate any possible errors in the medication administration process. These seven rights include: right patient, right drug, right dose, right route, right time, right action and right documentation. However, many medication errors continue to occur because one or more of these rights is either violated, or omitted altogether. Research done by Polifroni, et al. (2003), shows that the most common errors in medication administration are those involving the time of administration and the dosage amount. These errors are often a direct result of the nurse’s increasingly chaotic practicing environment. Increasing nursing shortages create a larger patient load for each nurse, making is easier for the nurse to get distracted and inadvertently miss the dose,
Nurses are in charge of administering medications, often more than one medication, and most of the time they have multiple patients. Being in charge medication passes pose a massive threat to errors (Huges,
My team lead day started before 6am on Wednesday October 26, 2016 at Tristar Skyline Hospital on the 6th floor GI/GU with Mrs. Bell as my clinical instructor. I met with the Nurse Leader on the floor and with her patient suggestions as well as reviewing the patients charts in the computer I could assign my students two patients each for the day of care. Once all my team members had arrived for the day we began in the conference room with an inspirational prayer for the day to go out and provide excellent care to our patients. Jeannette and I discussed the rooms that the group was assigned to for the day and we reviewed which patients were on accuchecks and or telemetry and discussed our game plan for the day. My team members started reviewing their patients charts to be ready to meet their nurses and receive report on their patients. Jeanette began vitals and I spoke with both
during the time the medication was missed. I would educate all staff on the importance
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
Although it may be one of several niche concepts in the pharmacists’ armament, chronotherapy represents a novel way of optimizing the patient experience of medications and delivering individualized care. In Australia, the Pharmacy Guild, a national body representing community pharmacies, highlighted the importance of timing of drug administration to support patient adherence to their prescribed treatment over time [13,14]. The Accreditation Standards for Pharmacy Programs in Australia and New Zealand require pharmacy degree programs to establish a curriculum that equips students with the knowledge and skills to ensure the safe and effective use of medicines in consumers. [15]. Therefore, it is important that students, as future pharmacists are equipped with up-to-date knowledge about recent research in various clinical areas related to medication use including, for example, chronotherapy. As future pharmacists, they need to be well-positioned to educate their patients about the optimal timing of medication administration, chronotherapeutic
In order to clearly communicate about these issues, definitions for key terms are included below. Medication error consists of administering medications outside of they dosing parameters; including wrong dose, wrong route, wrong time, wrong patient, wrong medication etc. According to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices ( 2015) “ an independent double check(IDC) is a process in which a second practitioner conducts a verification”(par.5). Independent double checks are a method used to improve the safety of medication administration. Some medications have higher risks of harm for the patient if given in error. High Alert Medications(HAM) are drugs that bear a heightened risk of causing significant harm when they are used in error.(ISMP, 2014). All above terms are relevant to the research done for the purpose of this paper.