Medication Administration Safety It is evident that patient safety is one of the most important principal in place as a nurse. To insure this there are many standards that are set in place that as a registered nurse need to be met, some including, professional responsibility and accountability, having knowledge based practice, ethical practice, service to the public and self-regulation (SRNA, 2014). “These standards and foundation competencies serve as the criteria against which all registered nurses, practising in all domains of nursing practice (direct care, education, administration, and research, and the evolving domain of policy) will be measured by clients, employers, colleagues and themselves”(SRNA, 2014). Having these standards allows register nurses and the public to have a clear understanding of what needs to be met in order to insure that there is proper patient safety. However there are still many issues that contribute to unacceptable patient safety, including medication administration errors, post operative care, and patients mental health. However, “medication errors are one of the most common types of medical errors that occur in healthcare institutions” (J.Choo, 2010). A medication error, according to The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention “is 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
Reducing Medication Errors in Long-Term Care Facility One of the critical core components of Skilled Nursing Facility is medication administration. As cited by Tenhunen, Tanner, and Dahlen (2014), they stated that 88% of the residents living in the nursing homes are aged 65 years old and older. They discussed that every five of administered medications in nursing home has one probability of error. This means that about half of the residents have the possibility of two or more medication errors daily. This applies to the Pasadena Care Center (PCC) because its residents are mostly older adults who require medications on a daily basis. Moreover, residents are prescribed with multiple medications, which make them vulnerable to medication errors. The staff at PCC is trying their best to ensure safe medication administration, however, it still in need of a major change. The goal of the proposed change is to decrease the medication errors in this organization to ensure patient safety.
According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA 2009), the wrong route of administrating medication accounts for 1.3 million injuries each year. An article published in September issue of the Journal of Patient Safety estimates there are between 210,000 and 400,000 deaths per year associated with medical errors. This makes medical errors the third leading cause of deaths in the United States, behind that comes heart disease and cancer. To prevent medical errors always follow the Three Checks and most importantly the Rights of Medication Administration. The “Rights of Medication Administration” helps to ensure accuracy when administering medication to a patient. When administering medication the administer should ensure they have the Right Medication, Right Patient, Right Dosage, Right Route, Right Time, Right Route, Right Reason, and Right Documentation. Also remember the patient has the right to refuse, assess patient for pain, and always assess the patient for signs of effects.
Outcome measures assess whether the interventions to improve medication safety practice will be successful. During the interview of the new employee, competency evaluation related to medication administration will be applied first. In addition, during the orientation for these new employees, adequate training will be provided to ensure the importance of preventing medication errors. They will be given a list of similar and look-alike medications and will focus on medications that cause the most adverse reactions when errors may occur. Then, after training and when staff start working, they will be supervised during their first few months. When they are not supervised, they will be assessed and evaluated for any errors. During this process,
According to NPSG.03.06.01: Due to the large number of consumers being prescribed multiple medications, and the complexity of managing those medications, it is of a major safety concern that systems are in place for clinicians to reconcile patients medications to resolve any discrepancies in what the patient is using, or should be using, and newly added ones.
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
n administration is modified to meet the needs of the individual patient. * Compare and contrast safe medication administration for a very young and very old patient.
Breeding, et al. (2013) states that there are a number of published documents addressing the quality, safety, and explicitly medication safety within ICUs worldwide. A large proportion of these studies focused on specific interventions such as: (1) creating “No interruption zones”; (2) addressing drug incompatibilities; (3) implementing automatic drug dispensing systems or electronic prescription of medications; or (4) implementing an ICU pharmacist role (Breeding, et al., 2013, p. 59). It is essential for multidisciplinary teams to be formed for medication safety promotion within this population. These teams would include physicians, pharmacists, and nurses (to also include advanced practicing nurses [APRN], such as nurse practitioners [NPs] or clinical nurse specialists
One of the standards that has been implemented is Standard 4: Medication Safety. The Australian Commission implemented this standard with the intention of ensuring that competent clinicians safely prescribe, dispense and administer appropriate medicines to informed patients and monitor the effect. (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2012) In healthcare, one of the most common treatments is medication. As a result of this, there are many incidences of error, many more than any other healthcare interventions. According to the Patient Safety Network (PS Network, 2015) medication errors account for nearly 700,000 emergency department visits and 100,000 hospitalizations each year. Medication errors are often a result of the unsafe and poor quality practice of healthcare professionals or system errors. Medication errors are costly and many are avoidable. For this standard
Best Practices to adopt whenever administering medication Andrew Pfaff Nightingale College of Nursing Pharmacology 210 Mr. H 11/24/2017 Best practices to adopt whenever administering medication. Introduction 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
The National Patient Safety Goals were created in response to the IOM article, To Err is Human: Building Safer Health Systems. These goals were written to address patient safety and are tailored depending on the health care setting to which they are written for. They address system wide solutions rather than focusing on whom or how the error was made. Medical errors have been noted as being the 8th leading cause of death in the U.S. with the most frequent of these errors being medication related (Johnson, K., Bryant, C., Jenkins, M., Hiteshew, C., & Sobol, K. 2010). Therefore a great focus on these goals is needed across the health care continuum. The goals are updated and amended on a regular basis using evidence-based research, in response to areas with high errors in patient safety.
Traditionally, pharmacists had no power of questioning any order made by the physician. It was also stated that a pharmacist had no power of advising the patient on the usage of medication. Currently, pharmacists have been given more power and therefore have the mandate of questioning any prescription from the physician. It has been observed that pharmacist can today share information with the doctor and ensure that patients get the right medication. Laws have allowed pharmacists to be consulted on some medications by patients, allowing patients to trust pharmacist on some simple questions that they do not need to visit their doctor. Pharmacists play a significant role in advising the patient today on the type of medication they are taking they are also held to the same standard when it comes to rules and
In the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report in 2006, Preventing Medication Error, more than 1/3 of the 1.5 million adverse drug events that were recorded in the United States each year occurred in an outpatient setting. Likewise, in 2008 IOM released a report that laid emphases on the need for setting universal standards within prescribing and dispensing practices. Multiple studies reported that an increased prevalence of patient adherence to taking prescribed medications can be compromised by their inability to comprehend or understand the directions for taking the medication (Wolf et al., 2016). The inability to understand and interpret prescription drug labels were recognized as the leading cause of a large proportion of outpatient medication error and adverse events, as patients may possibly accidentally misuse a prescribed
Definition of the challenge 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;
Business Case NEU Consulting Group Prepared by: Kuan-ling Chiu Wenjie Xie Executive Summary This business case outlines how the CPOE Project will address current business concerns, the benefits of the project, and recommendations and justification of the project. The business case also discusses detailed project goals, performance measures, assumptions, and constraints.