Medication Errors In Organizational Strategies

Nurses are responsible for multiple patients on any given day making medication errors a potential problem in the nursing field. Medication administration not only encompasses passing medication to the patients yet begins with the physician prescribing the medication, pharmacy filling the correct prescription and ending with the nurse administering and monitoring the patient for any adverse effect from the medication. According to the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCCMERP), ‘A medication error refers to any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the healthcare professional,

to enable access to prescription information by practitioners, law enforcement agents, and other authorized individuals and agencies

Barcode verification, protocol dosages, ScanEvent tracking, remote dose inspection and approval, automated label sorting and routing are all features that help organization to the pharmacy. Something I found very interesting is that this allows automated documentation of clinical drugs. This is important to clinical studies because it enables an easy access to how much drug is used and the effects of each

These systems will also help cut down on medication errors by comparing the patient’s to medications or interventions so that it is given to the correct patient. Also documents the care given so there would be no human error in the case of questioning whether care had been given as long as the caregiver documents in the record. These features of the electronic health record are in place to promote patient safety by reducing errors.

Encourage the use of computer-generated or electronic medication administration records. Plan for the implementation of computerized prescriber order entry systems. Consider the use of machine-readable code (i.e., bar coding) in the medication administration process. Use computerized drug profiling in the pharmacy. Be a demanding customer of pharmacy system software; encourage vendors to incorporate and assist in implementing an adequate standardized set of checks into computerized hospital pharmacy systems (e.g., screening for duplicate drug therapies, patient allergies, potential drug interactions, drug/lab interactions, dose ranges, etc.)”. (Association,

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.

2. Physicians will see increased compliance of the drug in their patients as the drug is not patient administered but provider administered. Will limit the variations in dosing patterns and practices. Provide alternatives for treatment. Improve revenue as it is administered in the office rather than at home.

When I say this, however, most people would picture the nurse giving the wrong medication due to lack of focus on the tasks at hand. While this could happen, I have noticed during my time at hospitals that the doctor orders are still hand written for the most part. Consequently, they can be very hard to be read legibly much less correctly translated into proper medication dosages. The first suggestion I would give to an organization would be that they required all orders to be submitted securely, by the doctors, to the pharmacy be electronic means.

The issues addressed are Findings 1 and 3: Finding 1 is patient medication errors are up and there is a perception of shady hiring practices and playing favorites. All employees are responsible for compliance. Policies and professional standards exist for the medical profession. The challenges will be reintroducing employees to Federal and state law that govern the profession. For hiring practices and playing favorites the challenges faced are the lack of compliance reporting structure or training for understanding compliance. There is a perception that work rules are not being enforced. Finding 3 is high job turnover and low employee morale. The challenges faced will be building communication strategies, building confidence in leadership,

Tracking patient history, medications, procedures and other information is much easier and communicating this information with other providers is much more effective.

The third positive point that I would make is that this program allows for physicians to monitor controlled substances better. This system is being used worldwide, so physicians are able to pull up all records of past prescriptions to make sure that their patient isn’t being over-prescribed. This system will essentially help cut back on the amount of people who are seeing different physicians in order to be prescribed an abundance amount of controlled substances. The next positive point that I would make is that it will reduce the amount of lost prescriptions. Since the prescription is made through a system on the internet, instead of on paper, the prescription is sent directly to the pharmacy to be filled. The last positive point that I would make towards e-Prescribing is that the physician will have instant access to notifications of clinical alerts. By this I mean that physicians will have full access of their patients documented allergies and previously prescribed drugs. If a physician tries to prescribe a new drug that could potentially cause negative reactions with this patient’s past medications, allergies, etc… an alert would be brought to attention on the

Physicians will gain advantage when using PDRs as it will provide and supply them with the latest medication / drug products available , concise drug information and multi-drug interaction checker . Daily news updates are also available thru these PDRs

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.

In a similar case, “ASHP Guidelines on Preventing Medication Errors in Hospitals,” was experienced prescribing error incorrect drug or instructions for use of a drug product ordered or authorized by physician; illegible prescriptions or medication orders that lead to errors that reach the patient (1993). Another problem that might occur at the doctor’s office the doctor might misunderstands the patients concerns or symptoms and misdiagnose the patient. Sometimes accidents might occur and the patient might not get well and goes back to see the doctor and the doctor to correct their mistake. When mistake takes place there should be a monitoring and managing action plan should be put in place. An appropriate and correct statistical thinking required to apply the statistician’s finding for improving the prescription process by the pharmacist in this process is lacking and that is the root problem for the prescription issue in this process. Another problem that ties in with this problem is the doctor handwriting; the person that enters the prescription may not understand what it says. They assumes it says something totally different written and that is another reason why it is important for the verification of the prescription with the doctor. The problem is a common-cause variation as the right statistical thinking is the inherent requirement of the prescription process (Horel & Snee,

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