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Medication error risks
Medication error risks
Medication error risks
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Medication errors are amongst the most common mistakes that have an impact on patient care. Medications are an absolute benefit if health care providers prescribe, dispense, and administer them to the patient by applying the appropriate technique. The administration of medication is a fundamental aspect of the nursing role and it is associated with significant risk, however, despite the health care team’s knowledge and devotion to quality care, errors with medications may occur. Therefore, it is important that health care providers are familiar with the most common encountered errors. Health care providers should be familiar with the basic rights of medication administration: Right drug, Right dose, Right patient, Right route, Right time, Right reason, and Right documentation and the three checks.
Despite the efforts to provide the best care, there are still different factors that may contribute to medication errors and they are the major cause of morbidity and mortality in the hospital setting. For instance, health care professionals, particularly nurses, use a broad variety of devices to help administer medications: infusion pumps, IV administration sets, oral syringes, etc. Infusion pumps are a common type of error identified in the hospitals and can cause serious harm, including death. Most of the errors are associated with
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The “do not use” list was then created in 2004; however, this requirement does not apply to electronic medical records but it remains under consideration. According to the JCAHO “surveyors found instances in which organizations had not taken to heart the requirements of the patient safety goals” (Thompson). Therefore, communication errors continue being the most common root of sentinel
For my research paper, I will be discussing the impact of medication errors on vulnerable populations, specifically the elderly. Technology offers ways to reduce medication errors using electronic bar-coding medication administration (BCMA) systems. However, skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) are not using these systems. Medication is still administered with a paper or electronic medication administration record (eMAR), without barcode scanning. In contrast, every hospital I have been in: as a patient, nursing student, and nurse uses BCMA systems. The healthcare system is neglecting the elderly. Nursing homes should use BCMAs to reduce the incidents of medication errors.
Nurses were the professional group who most often reported medication errors and older patients were those most often affected in the medication errors reports analyzed for this study (Friend, 2011). Medication error type’s revealed omitted medicine or dose, wrong dose, strength or frequency and wrong documentation were the most common problems at Site A where the traditional pen and paper methods of prescription were used; and wrong documentation and omission were the most common problems associated with medication errors at Site B where the electronic MMS was introduced (Friend, 2011). Reports of problems such as wrong drug, wrong dose, strength or frequency, quantity, wrong route, wrong drug and omitted dose were less frequent at Site B (Friend, 2011). The reduced incidence of omission errors at Site B supports suggestions that an advantage of the MMS is easy identification of patient requirements at each drug round time slot. Despite the finding of less omission errors at site B where the MMS had been introduced, there was a relatively high frequency in the incident reports of medication errors related to both omission and wrong dose, strength and frequency at both sites (Friend, 2011).
Unver, V., Tastan, S., & Akbayrak, N. (2012). Medication errors: Perspectives of newly graduated and experienced nurses. International Journal Of Nursing Practice, 18(4), 317-324. doi:10.1111/j.1440-172X.2012.02052.x
Some method such as audits, chart reviews, computer monitoring, incident report, bar codes and direct patient observation can improve and decrease medication errors. Regular audits can help patient’s care and reeducate nurses in the work field to new practices. Also reporting of medication errors can help with data comparison and is a learning experience for everyone. Other avenues that has been implemented are computerized physician order entry systems or electronic prescribing (a process of electronic entry of a doctor’s instructions for the treatment of patients under his/her care which communicates these orders over a computer network to other staff or departments) responsible for fulfilling the order, and ward pharmacists can be more diligence on the prescription stage of the medication pathway. A random survey was done in hospital pharmacies on medication error documentation and actions taken against pharmacists involved. A total of 500 hospital were selected in the United States. Data collected on the number of medication error reported, what types of errors were documented and the hospital demographics. The response rate was a total of 28%. Practically, all of the hospitals had policies and procedures in place for reporting medication errors.
Hospital medical errors can involve medicines (e.g., wrong drug, wrong dose, bad combination), an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis, equipment malfunction, surgical mistakes, or laboratory errors. High medical error rates with serious consequences occurs in intensive care units, operating rooms, and emergency departments; but, serious errors that harmed patients may have prevented or minimized. Understand the nature of the error
Agyemang, REO, and A While. "Medication errors: types, causes and impact on nursing practice." British Journal of Nursing (BJN) 19.6 (2010): 380-385. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. EBSCO. Web. 7 Mar. 2011.
The purpose of this paper is to show most of medication errors occur on the night shifts and the weekend shifts in pediatric care, Bar Code Medication Administration System’s success on extremely low medication errors in pediatric care, and tenfold medication errors in pediatric care.
Tzeng, H., Yin, C., & Schneider, T. E. (2013). Medication Error-Related Issues In Nursing Practice. MEDSURG Nursing, 22(1), 13-50.
Freudenheim, M. (2010, December 13). Panel set to study safety of electronic patient data. The New York Times. Retrieved from Http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/business/14records.html?_r=1&sq=healthcare informatics patient records&st=nyt&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1299414338-50ipQCu8c0TGV6j+8bTQUA
Medication errors made by medical staff bring about consequences of epidemic proportions. Medical staff includes everyone from providers (medical doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants) to pharmacists to nurses (registered and practical). Medication errors account for almost 98,000 deaths in the United States yearly (Tzeng, Yin, & Schneider, 2013). This number only reflects the United States, a small percentage in actuality when looking at the whole world. Medical personnel must take responsibility for their actions and with this responsibility comes accountability in their duties of medication administration. Nurses play a major role in medication error prevention and education and this role distinguishes them as reporters of errors.
O’Shea, E (1999) Factors contributing to medication errors: a literature review. Journal of Clinical Nursing. 8, 5,496-503.
Retrieved from: Ashford University Library Boaden, R., & Joyce, P. (2006). Developing the electronic health record: What about patient safety? Health Services Management Research, 19 (2), 94-104. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/236465771?accountid=32521.
Furthermore, safeguarding the confidentiality is an essential standard of EMR, hence the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was signed into law in 1996 that created a regulation for the electronic exchange, confidentiality, and protection of health records to ensure the safety of all patients’ information (Terry, 2015). Also, the definition in system’s data must be standardized to minimized errors and facilitate communication, and the quality control of the data must be established to ensure the system’s reliability. Lastly, all EMR developers must use a Health Level-7 (HL7) and a Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) standard which is needed to ensure the system’s interoperability (Ngafeeson, 2014). Interoperability, is the EMRs’ capability to transfer, acquire, distribute and translate organized and systematized information that pertains to health (Halilovic & Terner, 2016). Hence, the HL7 is an essential standard of an information
Around the globe many health organizations have adopted use of electronic medical records and Grimson et al. states that implementation of these electronic health systems in health institutions is one challenging task than in any other place following the medical information complexity, information entry challenges, confidentiality issues and security, and a profound absence of awareness of the advantages of
A great deal of the inquiry undertaken to date in relation to adverse medication events has neglected the impact that nurses have or could have in improving patient safety. Medical errors are mistakes committed while offering treatment to patients. Even more alarming is the increased rate of never events such wrong surgery, procedure and medications. The ignorance of the public to the facts creates an even bigger risk since they cannot prevent the mistakes from happening without the knowledge needed. Strategies have been developed to reduce the numbers of errors as well as educate the public on the existence of the errors with the hope of reducing unnecessary deaths and