Medication Administration Errors In Nursing

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.

Patient information, drug instruction, communication amongst medical staff member, drug labels, patient literacy and the nurses knowledge of the medication are just to name a few. It only takes one of these aspects to be incorrect for a medication error to harm a patient, causing life changing or even life threating complications. Other circumstances that may contribute to medication errors include fatigue and staffing shortage. Nurses reported that fatigue, stress and understaffing increased the risk of making a medication error. Anderson, (2010). Majority of clinical staff work 12 hours shifts. Due to patient acuity and inadequate staffing, workload and hours many times are increased. sleep deprivation has been shown to be a major factor in medication errors. The diminished hours of sleep effect clarity of thought causing room for errors. Novice nursing has also been a component of many medication errors. Unexperienced nurses are overwhelmed with the increased workload and new responsibilities, which places them in danger of making these dangerous inaccuracies. While rushing to pass meds in a timely manner, critical medication errors reportedly made. Actively adhering to the five rights of medication administration measures while distributing patient medication can inherently cut down on errors made in the nursing

The purpose of this paper is to bring forth awareness when it comes to patients and medication errors and further educates health care professionals on the importance of communication especially during transition of care. According to Williams and Ashrcoft (2013) “ An estimated median of 19.1 % of total opportunities for error in hospitals.” Although not all medication errors occur during transition it is the time most prevalent for these errors to occur. As per Johnson, Guirguis, and Grace (2015) “An estimated 60% of all medication errors occur during transition of care. The National Transitions of Care Coalition defines a transition of care as the movement of patients between healthcare locations, providers, or different levels of care within the same location as their conditions and care needs change, [and] frequently involves multiple persons, including the patient, the family member or other caregiver(s), nurse(s), social worker(s), case manager(s), pharmacist(s), physician(s), and other providers.”

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

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

Errors made while administering medications is one of the most common health care errors reported. It is estimated that 7,000 hospitals deaths yearly are attributed to medication administration errors.

Safe medication practices are key to every nurse since it results to safe medication administration. When medication is not administered correctly it results to adverse drug event which refers to harm to the patient that includes mental harm, physical harm, or loss of function which is as a result of a medication error (practices, 2017). Medication errors occur when a mistake is committed by a person administering medication and in order to avoid these errors safe medication practices need to be adhered to. Some of these

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.

For many patients the scariest part of being in the hospital is having to rely on other people to control your life changing decisions. One large part of this is the medications one is given while in our care. I can only imagine what it must be like for patients to have a stranger to come in and start administering drugs to me. This would be especially scary if I did not know what these medications did, or what negative effects could be caused by taking them. Unfortunately, the fear of medication errors that many patients have are not unfounded. Estimates range from 1.5 to 66 million patients a year have medication errors occur while they are in the care of health care professionals. Considering all of the technology we have at our

Medication administration is one of the first key elements you learn in nursing school. The standard is held high as the clinical instructors ask you to validate why you are giving a medication, what exactly it does, and to make sure that your patient meets the criteria to receive a medication. They watch you check the medication three times before it gets to a patient’s body, ensuring it is correct. However, medication errors stand as the third leading cause of death in the United States. There are endless reasons as to why this is the case, but Brian R. Malone keys in on the idea of “Intimidating Behavior Jeopardizing Medication Safety” How does the demeanor of medication providers effect those administering it? The purpose of this paper is to summarize the thoughts and ideas Malone discusses about the behavior, actions, and words that lead nurses and pharmacists to administer medications that cause adverse events and jeopardize patient safety.

Safety is a priority to delivering healthcare, however, medication errors have been identified as a safety issue in healthcare. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has released two landmark reports that identify adverse outcomes that occur yearly from medication errors (Kohn, Corrigan, Donaldson, 2000; Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2001). Because nurses are intimately involved in providing patient care and medications, as a result of these reports attention was directed at the nursing profession to improve the mathematical competence of nurses. Therefore, it is imperative that nursing students are competent in converting between measurement systems, identifying common pharmacological abbreviations, methods of medication administration, reading medication labels, and calculating medication dosages in order to provide safe care. In the article, Teaching the Culture of Safety, the American Nurses Association (ANA) affirms that pre-licensure programs should include education on patient safety and system vulnerabilities that is expanded on throughout all nursing education and practice to promote a culture of safety (Barnsteiner, 2011). Therefore, the implementation of early medication calculation in a nursing program helps establish fundamental nursing mathematical skills to help nursing students become competent in medication calculation skills and combat medication errors and promote the delivery of safe nursing care (Newton, Harris, Pittilgio, & Moore, 2009).

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;

The earlier in a nursing student schooling they are aware of the impact medication errors can have on patients the more of an impact the education will have. One of the basic tenants of safe medication administration is the three checks and the five rights. Three checks of medication labeling should be performed when reaching for the medication, when retrieving from the medication dispersal unit and before giving the medication to the patient. The five rights of medication: right medication, right patient, right dosage, right route and right time are also to be performed before each distribution of medication to a patient. (Taylor, Lillis, Lynn, & LeMone, 2015). This simple intervention can help to eliminate most potential medication error problems. But while learning such strategies is essential to helping build a culture of safety within a health care facility nothing compares to hands on experience. Getting nursing students’ clinical medication administration experience early in their education can build confidence and instill the qualities needed to be a safe

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.

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