Medication Safety Action Plan

The standard from the National Safety and Quality Health Service (2012) that I believe has the highest risk associated for a graduate nurse is Standard 4 Medication Safety (Bain). If best practice outlined in this standard is not abided by, then medication errors occur and may lead to poor outcomes for patients. These outcomes include longer hospitalisations, increased costs and death (Cheragi et al., 2014).

The intended use of medications is meant to improve a person’ health, it is very important the individual administering medication or self-medicating use the drugs correctly, by following the doctors’ instruction for the medication prescribed. Medication is given to diagnose, treat, and prevent illness. Medication can be very dangerous, which can potentially cause harm or even deaf if it’s not used properly.

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.

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,

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

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

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

This paper will review the implementation of the Electronic Medication Administration Record (eMAR) at Clayton Memorial Hospital, a 420-bed hospital, with a regional cancer center, cardiovascular services, ambulatory services and 24 physician practices in West Palm Beach, Florida. Through implementation of the eMAR, the 5 rights of medication administration are maintained (right patient, right medication, right dose, right route and right time), notifications are at the nurse’s fingertips, errors and warnings are readily available, allergy checking is automatically done, dose checking and other applicable clinical data are accessible. This paper will discuss one hospital’s journey on the path to medication safety.

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;

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

Since the perception of patient safety has arisen, many medical organizations were striving to improve medication safety. Emory Healthcare, the largest and most comprehensive health care system in Georgia, was one of them who were seeking ways to prevent medication errors. In recent years, some