Medication Error Reporting

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 (

Safety is one of the most important traits of providing care to a patient. Medical mistakes are a growing concern within the health care field, as each year an estimated 400,000 lives are lost to preventable medical mistakes (James, 2013). One important subset of medical mistakes is medication errors. The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention 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” (National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention, 2014). Health care

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.

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.

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

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,

medication error is and how it can have an impact on the nursing team or organizations was

Medication administration is a multi-step process that is handled by multiple healthcare professionals. It begins with the prescription that is transcribed mostly by the physician, then dispensed by the pharmacist, and ends with the administration of the medication by the nurse. Throughout this multi-step process, medication errors can occur at any stage of the medication administration process. As expressed by L. Cloete in “Reducing medication errors in nursing practice,” “One third of the errors that harm patients occur during the nurse administration phase: administering medication to patients is therefore a high-risk activity.” Because the nurse is responsible for administering medication to the patient, he/she is considered and viewed as the most accountable in regards to the patient’s safety. Medication errors are one of the most common medical errors that can result in an adverse event that may pose a serious threat to the patient’s safety and well-being. In the article, “An inside look into the factors contributing to medication errors in the clinical nursing practice,” Savvato and Efstratios defined and characterized 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;

Another causative issue to medication error was poor staff knowledge about medications. 46% (n=32) of registered nurses and 37% (n=15) of student nurses stated that not having enough knowledge about medications increases the risk for creating an error. It is essential for the person passing meds to identify potential side effects, the drug type, contraindication and it interactions to reduce the patient may encounter for taking the medication. The qualitative review of registered nurses reinforced this issue.

One of the many responsibilities of a nurse is administering medications. Improper transcription, dispensing, administering, and reporting can result in medication errors. The article Simple Steps to Reduce Medication Errors recognizes how detrimental errors can be to the patient and the facility (Chu, 2016). An error in medication can lead to an extended stay for the patient, resulting in serious harm or death.

Factors that were found to contribute to administration errors included: interruptions or distraction of nurses during medication administration, error-prone abbreviations, any type of intravenous medication, and nurse experience (ACSQHC, 2013). More so, findings from literature reviews have found that 2-3% of hospital admissions are medication-related (Roughead, Semple, Rosenfeld, 2016). Additionally, one in five preventable adverse drug events in hospitalised children is caused by medication errors (Neimann et al.,

Nurses are the health care professionals that collect and prepare medications for patients. They examine the doctor’s orders to see what medications patients are prescribed. Errors can occur in the distribution of these medications. As a result, the nursing ethic of do no harm may not occur. According to McIntyre, Thomlinson, & McDonald, “nurses are held in high regard” (2006, p.360). As such, nurses must keep this positive concept, as we are the health professionals that care for people when they are at their most vulnerable. There is a need for nurses to reflect back to nursing school and use the information taught to guide decisions regarding medications and their administration. This paper will examine medication administration errors

Patient safety is an essential component of hospital environments that has generated international debates and received many interpretations. It involves practices that seek to reduce risks and unnecessary health-related medication errors to an acceptable minimum (Silva & Camerini, 2012). Nurses’ role in the medication process includes administering drugs. This role exposes them to the possibility of making errors that can potentially harm the patient, or even result in death. The research articles authored by Westbrook et al. (2011) entitled “Errors in the Administration of Intravenous Medications in Hospital and the Role of Correct Procedures and Nurse Experience” and Ding et al. (2015) titled “Incidence of Intravenous Medication Errors

Factors associated with medication errors such as interrupted nurses, look-alike medication, wrong dosage given, wrong computation, nurses are multitasking or misleading hand written instructions (Jones, 2009, p. 41-46) can be prevented by the