Medication Safety Guidelines And Information

Radley, D., Wasserman, M., Olsho, L., Shoemaker, S., Spranca, M., & Bradshaw, B. (2013). Reduction in medications errors in hospitals due to adop

Each year, roughly 1.5 million adverse drug events (ADEs) occur in acute and long-term care settings across America (Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2006). An ADE is succinctly defined as actual or potential patient harm resulting from a medication error. To expound further, while ADEs may result from oversights related to prescribing or dispensing, 26-32% of all erroneous drug interventions occur during the nursing administration and monitoring phases (Anderson & Townsend, 2010). These mollifiable mishaps not only create a formidable financial burden for health care systems, they also carry the potential of imposing irreversible physiological impairment to patients and their families. In an effort to ameliorate cost inflation, undue detriment, and the potential for litigation, a multifactorial approach must be taken to improve patient outcomes. Key components in allaying drug-related errors from a nursing perspective include: implementing safety and quality measures, understanding the roles and responsibilities of the nurse, embracing technological safeguards, incorporating interdisciplinary collaborative efforts, and continued emphasis upon quality control.

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).

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.

Improved patient safety is the most essential advantage of the BCMA system. “On average a hospital patient is subjected to at least one medication error per day (IOM, 2006)”(Foote). BCMA significantly reduces medication errors that cause a compromise in patient safety. The BCMA verifies the five rights of medication administration before a patient receives a medication by the software alerting the nurse if there is a contraindication between the medicine scanned and the patient’s orders. A pilot study conducted at a 300-bed community hospital found that the BCMA system reduced medication errors by 80% (Foote). Fowler et al states that “decrease in errors related to the wrong patient was a direct result of the bar code system (Fowler).”

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,

Medication errors are among the most significant cause of patient injury in all types of medical errors (Johnson, Carlson, Tucker, & Willette, n.d). In the nursing profession, medication administration errors occur 34% of the time, second only to physician ordering errors (Gooder, 2011). The introduction of information technology, such as the Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA), offers new opportunities for reducing medication administration errors. BCMA was developed by the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center in 1998 to help improve the documentation of medication administration, decrease medication errors and provide

The project will be presented in detail and the importance of the need for a change in our current practice. The future objective will be providing this information to the South Carolina Labor and Licensing Board for review and possible inception. The power point presentation would provide information about medication errors, the on-going issues, the failure to keep medication administration safe and the purpose to standardize appropriate practices that will be made aware to all non-licensed facilities under the Lutheran Homes of South Carolina umbrella. The MED Tech training will be made available to current med techs and new hires that are Certified Nursing Assistants or Medical assistants with at least a year of patient care skills on our Health Care Academy websites where the staff has unlimited access. This will health, promote the knowledge, understanding and importance of medication administration in the correct manner while maintain safety for all

For many patients the scariest part of being in the hospital is having to rely on other people to control your life changing decisions. One large part of this is the medications one is given while in our care. I can only imagine what it must be like for patients to have a stranger to come in and start administering drugs to me. This would be especially scary if I did not know what these medications did, or what negative effects could be caused by taking them. Unfortunately, the fear of medication errors that many patients have are not unfounded. Estimates range from 1.5 to 66 million patients a year have medication errors occur while they are in the care of health care professionals. Considering all of the technology we have at our

As a leader in the workplace, medication errors mostly occur when the workplace is understaffed with a patient load of full nursing cares that require more attention and care than patients who are independent. Due to being understaffed with a patient load of 13 to 2 nurses, medication errors occur more often as nurses are being rushed to finish all cares within their work timeframe. To decrease medication errors it is important to implement more staff during medication rounds, thus giving nurses additional time to concentrate and assure that the correct medication and dose is being given to the right patient ( ). The 6 medication rights are important to implement into every workplace as it decreases the chances of administrating medication to the wrong patients ( ). The medication right include; ______________________________________________________________ ( ). Medication errors have important implications for patient safety and in improving clinical practice errors to prevent any adverse events (

After the interview with my nurse manager, I came up with the PICO question which states: “Does the computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system reduce the number of medication errors compared to the common paper system being used today?” This question is important and I selected it because the population that the Belvoir Community hospital serves includes army officers of all ages both active and retired including their spouses and children. This group includes two sub groups of highly vulnerable persons which include the very young and the very old, who have a high-risk effect for medication errors because the potential adverse drug event is three times greater than an adult hospitalized patient (Levine et al., 2001). CPOE is not a panacea, but it does represent an effective tool for bringing real-time, evidence-based decision support to physicians. Nurses are the last defense level of protection against medication errors, and are solely responsible for the dispensing, administering, and monitoring of medications. In healthcare, computers can be used to help facilitate clear and accurate communication between health care professionals. When using a CPOE system it allows physicians to type in prescriptions right into the device or computer which significantly lessens any mistakes that can occur when

Nursing in today?s society involves more than technical skills, critical thinking, and compassion. It also is changing to add the ability to not only understand but be able to utilize technology to impact a patient?s health. There are many technological changes employed in healthcare practices, however, I have chosen to address bar-code medication administration or BCMA. According to an article in the Journal of Patient Safety, ?bar-code medication administration has been shown to be effective in reducing patient medical errors, yet is still only utilized in 5% of the country?s health care facilities? (Sands, Slebodnik, & Young, 2010). Medication errors are common in hospitals and often lead not only to patient harm, but also lengthy hospital stays and law suits. ?One study identified 6.5 adverse events related to medication use per 100 inpatient admissions, more than one fourth of these events were due to errors and were therefore preventable? (Bane, et. al., 2010).

Jeffery et. al. (2005) study, “A Controlled Trial of Smart Infusion Pumps to Improve Medication Safety in Critically Ill Patients,” aimed at looking at the differences in serious medical errors using smart infusion pumps vs not using smart pumps in an intensive care unit. Although, this was accomplished, it was significantly limited by the sample group characteristics and lack of staff education regarding smart pumps. The study analyzed in depth the serious medication errors using the infusion pumps and found multiple areas for improvement, from the provider ordering the medication to the reprograming of the pumps. This can help reduce medication administration errors specific to the causes found by the study. Medication errors can be life threatening especially to critically ill patients. Intravenous medications, if given improperly, can have fatal consequences in the critically ill (Tissot et. al.,1999). For example, heparin given at the wrong dose can lead to severe bleeding and stroke (Crowther & Warkentin, 2008). Using smart pumps gives alerts to the operator making them aware of a possible wrong dose based on the medication given.

As healthcare continues to develop, so too has the technology involved. In the article, “A Controlled Trial of Smart Infusion Pumps to Improve Medication Safety in Critically Ill Patients” the authors seek to understand the impact of smart pumps, how they are used in the clinical setting and how this technology effects medication errors and adverse drug events. The thesis of this article recognizes that while the medication administration process is complex and allows many opportunities for error, the impact of advancing technology has great promise in improving the safety of infusion-based medications. The study also provides an opportunity to understand how critical care nurses are (or are not) integrating new technology into their practice. This non-blinded, prospective time series study sheds light on the fact that both the technology and the nurse’s performance were the critical factors in the current rates of intravenous infusion errors (Rothschild et al., 2005, p. 13, 20).

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