Risks Of Medication Errors Within Healthcare

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,

Errors made while administering medications is one of the most common health care errors reported. It is estimated that 7,000 hospitals deaths yearly are attributed to medication administration errors.

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.

There is no substitute for common sense and diligence, but technological advances may be of use in helping to prevent medication errors. Technological measures include automated medication dispensing machines, computerized IV administration, and the bar coding of both patients and drugs. A research study conducted among a select group of nursing students at a suburban New York university was designed to answer the question: Does the use of PDAs (personal digital assistants) with drug and medication calculation software improve the accuracy and efficiency of medication administration (Greenfield, 2007)? Results of this study upheld the hypothesis that the use of PDAs and medical software did, overall, improve the accuracy and efficiency of medication administration. The author of the study recommends that all nursing students be required to have PDAs with drug and calculation software on them. There is evidence to

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,

There are many different variables that go into a scenario of a medication error. Nurses carry a huge role with ensuring patient safety during a medication administration. According to Härkänen, Ahonen, Kervinen, Turunen and Vehviläinen-Julkunen (2015), the study that was performed on a medical surgical floor yielded information that allows administration to examine plausible reason behind the medical errors. The area within nursing that need to have an improvement is reducing patient medical errors due to patient to nurse ratio in combination with reducing distraction and acuity. The study that performed by Härkänen et al. (2015), observed that patients had medications of upwards to 20 regular medications, and giving them 3 times minimally. Nurses encounter many types of distractions during the times that they are administering medication. The first issue with this is that the patient has high acuity

Older adults are at high risk for adverse effects of medication error more than their counteract younger adults. This is because they depend on more than one medication in order to treat or prevent disease, syndromes and sickness (Lindenberg, 2010). It is inevitable that the elderly face adverse effects of drugs while on medication especially when they still live independently. However, chances of errors in hospitals and care homes are more frequent when the medication process connects several departments (Belen et. al., 2009). Therefore, tactical measures are required in the provision of drug therapy in order to optimize safe medication in older adults. This paper discusses the issue by analyzing the existing structure of administering medication, reviewing the occurrence of medication errors; evaluating systems developed to advance safe medication administration. Finally, addressing the implication for professional nursing practice.

One of the most complex challenges that healthcare facilities face, are the high occurrences of medication errors. Due to increased incidences of medication errors, it has become a major priority for healthcare systems to find preventions that could simply decrease medical errors. With evidence provided from different research healthcare systems are moving more towards using computerized information technology for simple automated notes, too bed-side bar code medication administration, electronic medication reconciliation and physician order entry’s as strategies to decrease medication errors (Agrawal, A. 2009).

There are now computers in every room, in almost every healthcare facility. Nurses now chart most of their medication administrations in the room and can focus on one patient at a time. A nurse must scan the patient’s band or some identifier and scan the meds before giving the medication to the patient. The computer program will tell the nurse if he or she made a mistake with the time of medication, wrong dosage, wrong medication, and/or wrong patient. In a hospital in England, there was a declined in medication errors from 8.6 percent to 4.4 percent when a new computer system was implemented. Prescription errors were also reduced from 3.8 percent to 2 percent. The new system was computerized order entry, automated dispensing, and had electronic medication administration records. Technology has greatly reduced the percent of medical errors, but not all of them, but by studying different systems and modifying systems hopefully medication errors will be a thing of the past (Hughs & Blegen,

There are many rules and precautions taken to ensure that medication errors do not happen. In nursing school students in the RNs and BSN program are both taught ways to not make medication errors. A study done by Margret Harris, Laura Pittiglio, Sarah Newton, and Gary Moore was done to see if simulation can be used to improve medication administration to reduce medical errors.

The health information technology (HIT) topic selected is medication errors. In his March 17, 2017 article titled, “Poorly Implemented IT systems lead to medication errors” author Evan Sweeny discusses a the findings of Pennsylvania Safety Advisory which found that information technology (IT) systems implemented to prevent medication errors, may in fact contribute their occurrence. This paper will examine how HIT can both prevent and contribute to medication errors. The following elements are included, introduction, the rationale for selection, positive and negative impact of health information technology on medication errors, how informatics skill was relevant in assignment development, and

This reflection will reflect on an incident that happened during my clinical placement. According to Gulland, A. (2013, Jul) the most frequent reported error in health care settings are medication errors.

An education program over medication safety may aid in reducing medication errors and the harm that follows errors. A commonly used strategy is the “5 Rights of Medication administration” which includes right patient, right drug, right dose, right time, right route (Leape et al., 1995). Currently, this strategy has been updated to six rights, adding right documentation (Pape et al., 2005). Another option available to teach medication safety is to utilize the use of technology. For examples, employees may be required to watch several education videos before they can administer any medication. Technology is always advancing, and advanced technology may aid further in the safety of patients. For example, some institutes are implementing intravenous infusion pumps, otherwise called “smart pumps.” The pumps have software that can be managed to be specific to the hospital and patient care, and the medications, standard concentrations, dosing units, and dosing limits are configured. These pumps promote safety by alerting the nurse when she has programmed the infusion rate too low or too high (Dennison, 2007). The Food and Drug administration have also worked on reducing errors by implementing bar codes. When a patient enters the hospital, they receive a bar-code bracelet for identification and nurses use the scanner to scan the

Medication administration errors can be made when patients are not properly identified. A consistent method for the proper identification of patients is needed to ensure patient safety. Many institutions have implemented technologies aimed at reducing error rates, for example, bar-code assisted medication (BCAM) administration, but the practice and rate of use varies, and medication errors are still a problem in the healthcare setting. The purpose of the study is to examine the effect of implementing a visual aid that will prompt nurses to scan patient’s identification bands prior to medication administration on the occurrence of medication administration errors.

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