Compromised Patient Safety Reflection Maintaining patient safety is a critical component of nursing practice. Reflecting on experiences where patient safety was potentially compromised can provide valuable insights and inform future practice. "The accuracy of drug dosage calculations is clinically important due to the potential for serious health consequences in patients" (Williams & Davis, 2016, p. 145). Reflecting on previous experiences, effective strategies are needed to improve medication calculation skills. Two key strategies are regular practice, review, utilizing study groups, and tutoring. By implementing these strategies, nurses can enhance their competency and confidence in medication administration, while maintaining patient safety. …show more content…
Consistently engage in practice problems related to dosage calculations and medication administration techniques to solidify an understanding and skills. Regular practice allows nurses to develop a level of proficiency crucial for accurate medication dosing, reducing the risk of errors that could harm patients. Reviewing dosage calculation formulas and best practices in medication administration also ensures that nurses stay updated. Study Groups and Tutoring Forming study groups with peers or seeking tutoring from instructors can provide collaborative learning opportunities and diverse problem-solving approaches. Discussing problems and sharing strategies can lead to a deeper understanding and improvement in medication calculations. According to a recent nursing article, peer-assisted learning can significantly enhance students' confidence and competence in medication administration (Smith et al., 2022). Implementation Implementing the strategies of regular practice and review and utilizing study groups and tutoring will directly and positively impact patient safety in medication
Medication errors in children alone are alarming, but throw an ambulatory care setting into the mix and it spells disaster. When it comes to children and medication in the ambulatory care setting, the dosage range is drastically out of range compared to those that are treated in the hospital setting (Hoyle, J., Davis, A., Putman, K., Trytko, J., Fales, W. , 2011). Children are at a greater risk for dosage errors because each medication has to be calculated individually, and this can lead to more human error. The errors that are occurring are due to lack of training, dosage calculation errors, and lack of safety systems. Medication errors in children who are receiving ambulatory care can avoided by ensuring correct dosage calculation, more in-depth training of personal and safety systems in place.
Most undergraduate nursing students are not being properly educated on proper medication administration. Clinical instructors and registered nurses need to be updated on medication administration reporting, so students do not develop bad habits when they become registered nurses. Registered nurses must also continue their education on med error prevention to prevent future errors. Another significant problem with registered nurses was that they did not have positive attitudes when reporting an error. Once these negative attitudes were changed, more errors were reported (Harding & Petrick, 2008). The three main problems that cause medication errors...
The most common kind of medication error is administering the wrong medication or giving wrong doses. A medication error is any error that happens to patients whether they suffer any harmful results or not. Inappropriate nurses-to-patients ratio should be taken into consideration because it can cause medication errors. A new study shows that every year about 210,000-400,000 people who were admitted to the hospital die due to medication error; it also shows that is is “the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer”(MacDonald). For instance, an interview was done with Nurse Carol, a retired nurse; she said that she made a medication error while administering medication to one of her patients. She said that she was rushing and accidentally gave Cozaar to one of her patients instead of Colace. Cozaar is often used for high blood pressure and Colace is for constipation. She said her patient’s pressure dropped very low after taking the medication; she realized then that she gave the patient the wrong medication. Nurse Carol also said that if she did no...
Introduction The Patient Safety Plan is a program that provides a systematic, coordinated and continuous methodology to the upkeep and upgrading of safety through the founding of mechanisms that support effective responses to definite incidences in an organization work environment. It is also the incorporation of patient safety main concern into new strategy in an organizational functions and services which would lead to continuous positive decrease of risk in the work environment. Patient safety plan is used as a guide to approach optimum safety objectives which involves different departments and disciplines in creating plans, processes and devices that contain the patient care safety activities in a hospital setting (Main Line Health Inc,
Through this opportunity, I have become aware of legal, ethical and professional regulations of the nurse prescribing. I have gained a comprehensive knowledge of pharmacology, especially on the medications to achieve the competencies essential for a successful nurse prescriber. The development process has enlightened me with the gravity of my new role, and the accountability and responsibility which accompanies it. Through the innovation of the nurse prescribing process, the professional boundaries of nurses are being redefined for the benefit of both patient and nurse. The structured reflective practice has the potential to develop staff and improve the implementation of professional standards. Reflection can help to make sense of complicated and difficult situations, as well as learn from the experiences. Thus, a healthcare staff can identify educational needs, workload stressors, highlight barriers to development and provide evidence of continuing professional development. In addition, staff could become increasingly more motivated to empower performance and patient care. Healthcare providers have an ethical obligation to inform patients about their on-going plan of care, including if a medical error has occurred. Current thinking in nursing advocates the need for education in the ways of autonomy, critical thinking, and sensitivity to others. Good communication encourages collaboration and helps prevent medication errors. Many potential and actual medical errors fall within the sphere of nursing practice. Thus, nurses have an ethical obligation to help prevent and manage medical
Every day there is a constant trust adhered to many different people in the profession of Nursing—the decision of what will help patients in terms of medicine, and the confidence to make these decisions. One false act or one slight misdiagnoses of medication to a patient could be the prime factor in whether the patient lives or dies. Nurses in hospitals across the country are spread thin, and thus makes the probability of mistakes higher. If a medicinal dose is off by even one decimal a patient could die, so the only real answer is for nurses to not be afraid to ask for assistance, always follow procedure and voice opinion is they feel something is wrong.
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.
The study concluded with results that recommend all nursing students to be supervised in the clinical setting. Undergraduate nursing student are at risk of making errors when administering medications to patients in hospitals. Adequate supervision assisted avoiding errors which indicates that supervision is an essential component for safe medication administration by nursing students. Educators for the nursing
Patient safety one of the driving forces of healthcare. Patient safety is defined as, “ the absence of preventable harm to a patient during the process of healthcare or as the prevention of errors and adverse events caused by the provision of healthcare rather than the patient’s underlying disease process. (Kangasniemi, Vaismoradi, Jasper, &Turunen, 2013)”. It was just as important in the past as it is day. Our healthcare field continues to strive to make improvement toward safer care for patients across the country.
Drug administration forms a major part of the clinical nurse’s role. Medicines are prescribed by the doctor and dispensed by the pharmacist but responsibility for correct administration rests with the registered nurse (O'Shea 1999). So as a student nurse this has become my duty and something that I need to practice and become competent in carrying it out. Each registered nurse is accountable for his/her practice. This practice includes preparing, checking and administering medications, updating knowledge of medications, monitoring the effectiveness of treatment, reporting adverse drug reactions and teaching patients about the drugs that they receive (NMC 2008). Accountability also goes for students, if at any point I felt I was not competent enough to dispensing a certain drug it would be my responsibility in speaking up and let the registered nurses know, so that I could shadow them and have the opportunity to learn help me in future practice and administration.
Baccalaureate nurses are responsible for providing and ensure our patients safety. The knowledge from others mistakes can help informs nurses of extra precautions that we can take to ensure our patient’s safety. Risk Analysis and Implication for practice course helped me understand the steps I as a nurse can take as well as the facilities I work for to help reduce the number of medication errors that occur. Interviewing the pharmacist help me get a better insight to what facilities already have in place to help prevent medication errors. However like most things you have to have educated and compassionate caring staff to enforce and follow the guidelines set in place.
Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency coordination task force with the help of government agencies. These government agencies are responsible for making health pol-icies regarding patient safety to which every HCO must follow (Schulman & Kim, 2000).
As a student nurse, I have been assigned the task of identifying patient safety concerns in adult nursing. To support my evaluation and analysis, I will gather evidence-based information from relevant literature. In addition, I will use an improvement tool to identify possible areas of improvement and to develop effective strategies to address the concerns. Patient safety is a fundamental principle that guides the provision of care and is crucial in nursing practice. As nurses, it is our responsibility to prevent harm to patients, promote their overall health and well-being, and ensure the highest level of quality care.
Patient Safety Incident: A look at the Nurses role in paediatric medication errors and prevention There are many different patient safety issues prevalent in the clinical setting today. This essay will take a particular focus on medication errors in the paediatric population which can lead to poor clinical outcomes for such patients. This is a substantial problem because according to Hughes and Edgerton (2005), it accounts for the most common harm to paediatric patients during treatment. The essay will deal with the role of the nurse in facilitating such incidents. Therefore there will be a specific focus on the extent of errors at stages of medication administration, education and monitoring.
Patient safety as defined by World Health Organization (WHO) is simply the prevention of errors and poor effects to patients allied with health care (WHO 2015). Patient safety has, of course, been a serious global public health issue (Nieva & Sorra2003), as it is the same from the delivery of quality health care (Aspden et al. 2004). In the recent years numerous national initiatives have been implemented to improve patient safety and quality care (Victoria et al. 2013). Patient safety is the cornerstone of high-quality health care and is a common goal for all healthcare providers (Flanagan et al, 2004; Singh et al. 2005). Quality has always formed a central part of patient care, but quality management includes management of quality issues in all aspect of the organization (Sale 2005).