Medication Errors: A Case Study

McComas, Riingenm and Kim (2014), conducted a study that investigated the occurrence of medication errors and the efficiency of medication administration following the implementing an eMAR system. The study was conducted in an appropriate setting and all observed nurses volunteered for the study. Before implementing the eMARs mandatory class were provided and nurses were evaluated for competency. Data was collected by observation and nurses were randomly followed throughout a medication pass. Collected data consisted of medication errors, distractions during medication pass and amount of time spent administering medications.

Excellent outline for your quality improvement initiative that addresses medication errors. I like how you describe the closed-loop medication administration process that includes all members of the interprofessional team. Your references are also well researched and current. From the outline, it is unclear what the barriers and implementation strategy are to reduce medication errors. One suggestion I would make is to look at the grading rubric. There are four main points that the rubric requires to complete the objectives for the paper. I usually create headings that align with the rubric, this helps me organize my thoughts and to meet the objectives of the assignment.

There are many rules and precautions taken to ensure that medication errors do not happen. In nursing school students in the RNs and BSN program are both taught ways to not make medication errors. A study done by Margret Harris, Laura Pittiglio, Sarah Newton, and Gary Moore was done to see if simulation can be used to improve medication administration to reduce medical errors.

Bar-coded medication administration (BCMA) systems are also commonly used by nurses to improve medication administration in inpatient settings. As an illustration, a study in 2007 showed that BCMA systems reduced medication administration errors by 54-87% in hospitals in the US. It has been reported that a large number of medication errors happens at care transition points, i.e., during admission, transfer and discharge of patients. Thus, medication reconciliation at all transition points could significantly improve medication safety. In fact, preliminary evidences suggest that application of electronic medication reconciliation systems are quite effective in reducing such errors. Additionally, electronic personal health record (EHR) systems can be used to reduce medication errors. These IT systems allow patients to access, coordinate their health information and make it available to their healthcare providers. IT systems are also used to reduce medication errors of omission. As an example, recent studies have demonstrated that smart electronic discharge systems utilized in some hospitals can alert physicians to prescribe important medications.

Many medication errors occur as a result of lack of adequate knowledge and skills in medication error. Nurses play a vital role in safe medication administration. Nurses should have adequate skill and knowledge to prevent medication error. Yearly competence test in medication administration and periodic education and training is vital to improve the knowledge and skills. Prescription errors are the common cause of medication error. Physicians should take full advantage of computerized physician order entry system (CPOE) to improve the medication safety. Verbal and written orders should replace with CPOE. Distraction can cause medication error and avoiding unnecessary distraction during medication administration can prevent a number of

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.

The administration of medication can be associated with a significant risk with it is recognized as a central feature of the nursing role. It should continue in order to avoid a possible medical malpractice continuous care. Nursing staff have a unique role usually given to patients to manage their medication and responsibilities, then they can report these identified medication errors. Some of the most distinguishable events can be related to errors in professional practice, prescribing, dispensing, distribution, and education or monitoring. Since medication errors can arise at any state of the administration process, it is essential for nursing staff to be attentive of the most commonly encountered errors. For the most part, the common of the perceptible aspects related with medication errors are due to minimal awareness about hospital policies, inappropriate implementation or latent conditions (Farinde, n.d).

Medication administration errors are a big problem in the nursing field. However, with the infusion platform, this prevents medication errors from happening. The infusion platform allows nurses to program the prescription ordered for the patient and blocks any low or high medication doses to enter the patient. With this new profound technology, it provides patient safety to the fullest.

Regardless of various methods in order to prevent medication mistake, nurses should playing a key role as a front line of take care of patients’ safety. According to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices and the Agency for Healthcare Research Quality (AHRQ), there are some recommendations in order to reduce medication administration through using three techniques such as unit dose dispensing, bar-coding medication administration (BCMA) and smart infusion pumps. Such combination strategies are effective to the wrong patient, the wrong medication, incorrect drug dose. Also it may reduce the incidence of medical errors associated with the administration of the drug at the wrong time, however, there is still arise the medication errors related

Thank you for educational and insightful post. You did an excellent job explaining all necessary steps how to deal with medication errors. According to Anderson and Townsend (2015), medication errors are the most common healthcare errors. Each error can cost somewhere between $2,000 to $ 8,750 of in-patient expenses and leads to more than 7,000 deaths annually. Interruptions and distractions, if it is to a prescriber or whoever is administering the medication, are among most common reasons why medication error occurs.

Medication errors are a one of the biggest causes of patient’s death. “Based on an analysis of prior research, the Johns Hopkins study estimates that more than 250,000 Americans die each year from medical errors. On the CDC's official list, that would rank just behind heart disease and cancer, which each took about 600,000 lives in 2014, and in front of respiratory disease, which caused about 150,000 deaths.”(Hopkins). “But no one knows the exact toll taken by medical errors. In significant part, that's because the coding system used by CDC to record death certificate data doesn't capture things like communication breakdowns, diagnostic errors and poor judgment that cost lives, the study says”(Hopkins). Medication errors can happen to anyone because humans are not perfect and they make mistakes. The lesson to be taken away from an error is how to prevent future ones.

Adverse drug events are the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and represent a significant financial burden to healthcare institutes at an estimated cost of $5.6 million per hospital per year (Meguerditchian N, Krotneva, Reidel, Huang, & Tamblyn, 2013). According to The Joint Commission (2006), medication reconciliation is the process of comparing a patient’s medication orders to all of the medications the patient has been taking. This reconciliation is done to identify and resolve medication discrepancies, which are unintended or unexplained

As a result medication errors are costly and seem to be relative to the staffing of nurses. Given that nurses make up such a large segment of the staff population, it is important to identify with the factors behind these medication errors.

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

My experience with issue of medication error occurred during my pre-graduate clinical in a long term facility, I and the preceptor were administering medications during lunch time. One of the residents came from leave of absence, prior to her LOA, the daughter who was the POA was given the resident’s medications, including insulin. When she returned to the facility, her medication was administered as per scheduled time without having knowledge when the last insulin was given, fifteen minutes thereafter, the personal care provider noticed that this particular resident was not eating and appears to be sweating, the PCP reported to us, on assessment she was found to be shaking, sweating and loss of consciousness and her glucose level was