Medication Errors And The Medical Field

Patient safety is of high importance in the healthcare field. Medication errors are still of great concern in the healthcare setting. These errors are only one of many safety concerns. Medication errors occur often enough to be problematic, causing researchers to try to find the problem and come up with a solution. This error is a massive problem when a big part of nursing is delivering medications to patients. A health facility is thought to be a safe environment, when incidents like medication errors

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) “Too Err is Human” estimated 98,000 deaths yearly due to medical error. Many of the errors are the result of adverse drug events, most of which occur during the prescribing and administration stages of medication administration (Guo, Iribarren, Kapsandoy, Perri, and Staggers, 2011). These errors are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients. One report estimates that when all types of errors are accounted for, every hospitalized patient can expect on average one type of medication error per day and during 2006, adverse drug events resulted in approximately 400,000 cases of error at a cost of over $3.5 billion (pp. 202-224). Studies have demonstrated a

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

Two words any nurse dreads to hear is ‘medication error’, knowing that potential harm has been or could have been caused to a patient from a simple mistake. The Texas Board of Nursing (TBON, n.d.) describes medication errors as an “inappropriately prescribed, dispensed, or administered” medication causing a circumstances or events that have the ability to cause harm (Position Statement 15.17). Director of medical and surgical unit, R. Crowdis, stated each healthcare institute have their own policies in place to prevent medication errors and reporting any medication errors that occur (Personal Communication, June 11, 2016). Upon reviewing current hospital policies, the interview focused on prevention methods of medication errors, how to encourage

The words medication error elicit fear in every nurse. According to Stefanacci and Riddle (2016), preventable medication errors are responsible for third reason of death apart from heart disease and cancer in the United States. As a nurse, it is important to obtain skills and knowledge to prevent them as these errors could result in extended hospitalisation of patients, simultaneously a burden of health care cost. These errors could be reduced by identifying the problems which lead to medication errors and following certain protocols in a coordinated environment.

The IOM report To Err is Human (2000), categorized various types of errors based on the research of Leape, Woods & Hatlie,. (1993). The research conducted by Leape, et al. (1993) reveals that 70% of errors were preventable. Despite the ideal desire to be perfect healthcare professionals, we are all human; and no one is perfect. The primary focus in terms of medication errors is prevention, however the

Medication errors are a big deal because you are at risk of ending someone's life by a simple mistake because you didn't recheck the medication you are administering to the patient. In 2007, a nine year old named Alyssa Hemmelgarn became sick and she kept taking medicine but wasn't getting any better. She was sick with swollen glands and cold sores. When Alyssa and her mother went to the doctors , the doctor diagnosed her with leukemia. A week passed by and she was getting treatment. Seems like she was getting better with all the medication she has been taking until one day she started receiving the symptoms and soon after passed away in the hospital. It turns out that the doctor noted her as “anxious” so they medicated her with ativan. The

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

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.

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 errors are happening more than they should and need to be brought under control. Eliminating medication errors has been a major problem in the healthcare setting; whether it be from prescribing, dispensing, or administering, it relates back to the doctors, pharmacists, nurses, and improperly taught patients. Medication errors is one thing that can be eliminated if certain protocol is followed and guidelines are met. If medication errors in the healthcare setting were eliminated, then those patients would be safer and all in all, healthier. To start off with let’s view the problem and take a brief tour of the history, then move on to the patients that are affected, understand how they are affected, and what harm it can cause to them. The last thing that will

Medications are used as one of the interventional strategies in the prevention and management of various ailments. Although medications are useful to patients, when used inappropriately, they are not only harmful to patients but also impair the reputation of physicians. Medication Errors (MEs) are known to occur in the healthcare setting. According to National Coordination Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCCMERP) medication errors are defined as “Any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of a healthcare professional, patient or consumer”. Medication errors occur when a healthcare professional performs an act that

About1.5 million people are harmed yearly in the U.S. because of medication errors, The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCCMERP) defines the meaning of medication error, they define it 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…”. (Stoppler, 2015) It is a serious topic in the nursing field that should be addressed and prevented.

Medication errors have always been a problem; even today they still loom about health care facilities such as hospitals and assisted living homes. A medication error is as an error in the process of providing care for a patient that has potential to harm the patient. There also many different ways those medication errors can occur, prescription, preparation, distribution, transcription, administration and monitoring. “It has been estimated by the Institute of Medicine that medication errors cause 1 of 131 outpatient and 1 of 854 inpatient deaths,” (Wittich et al, 2013). Of those different ways medication errors can happen, all of them have multiple factors that go into them that can cause an error to occur. Medication errors cause many

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