Medication Errors in Healthcare The nursing profession entails many responsibilities that range from providing emotional support to administering medications that could result in death for those receiving care. Approximately 40% of a nurse's day consists of passing medication, a duty that sets their level of liability above many other healthcare professions (McCuistion, Vuljoin-DiMaggio, Winton, Yeager, & Kee, 2018). Despite today's advances in technology and nursing education, the frequency of medication errors is still staggering. To ensure that the benefits of nursing outweigh the risks, nurses look to the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) six core competencies for guidance. These competencies include quality improvement, safety, informatics, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, and patient-centered care (Cronenwett et al., 2007). Each competency has its own knowledge, skills, and attitudes that when applied to medication administration, help warrant the best results. In order to …show more content…
To create an environment where these errors are a rare occurrence, all healthcare professionals must dedicate themselves to implementing QSEN's six core competencies each and every day. These professionals must also speak up when they see room for improvement in their workplace. Regardless of the healthcare setting or demographic of patients, safe outcomes are the purpose of providing patient-centered care. Since nurses are the largest subgroup of healthcare professionals, their ability to make strides towards improved medication administration is undeniable. As the nursing code of ethics states, nurses have the duty to protect the health and safety of those in their care (Winland-Brown, Lachman, O'Connor Swanson, 2015). By taking extra caution to administer medications correctly, this honorable obligation will always be within
By creating this comprehensive list of the medication plan given to the patient, the hospital pharmacist can then send this information to the community pharmacist and make sure that the information is held up to date. This would allow for a smoother transition for the patient and it would allow the patient to be more informed of their medications. The pharmacist is “poised to play an important role in improving medication management during transitions of care and reducing readmission rates” so the pharmacist should play a more active role to help ensure the best therapy for the patient (7). The pharmacist should ultimately design an ideal system for Medication Reconciliation to help reduce medication errors and better inform patients on ADEs to prevent any unnecessary medical
Six months after the introduction of medication aides, error rates were as follows: RN (2.75%), LPN (7.25%) and medication aides (6.06%) with a mean error rate of 6.6%” Randolph & Scott-Calwiezell (2010) as cited in Budden (2011). While errors remain, the objective of reducing inaccuracies among primary nursing staff was achieved by
Effective communication is crucial in ensuring that patient care is coordinated and safe. This semester, I witnessed an incident where a patient's medication was missed because the communication between the physician and the nurse was unclear. The nurse assumed that the physician had ordered the medication, but the physician thought the nurse had already given it. This resulted in the patient not receiving the medication on time, which could have led to complications. This experience reinforced the importance of clear and effective communication among healthcare
The nursing staff needs to make sure they have more indicators towards practice nurse safety. Focusing on working patient safety down to zero with grade c medication ( Cockerham ,J.,Figueroa-Altmann,A., Foxen,C., Paffett,C., Sullivan,A.,&Wellner,J.,2014). The nurses making sure patient safety is first when administrating medication .The hospital would like to limit risk and increase reliability when taking care of patients. The purposed of this peer review article is to have the quality nursing and ample amount of nursing staff.
Reporting medication errors is beneficial to improve the learning process for nurses. The factors of workload, ineffective communication, and distraction all contribute to medication errors (Sears et al., 2013). Nurses often excuse the behavior of colleagues when a medication error occurs, or nurses will pass the buck to a senior nurse to report the medication error (Haw, Stubbs and Dickens, 2014). Implementing a no blame policy for reporting medication errors, and providing nurses with the knowledge and training to report medication errors will result in an increase of medication errors reported. References Haw, C., Stubbs, J. and Dickens, G. (2014).
QSEN Competencies allow nurses to improve the safety and quality of existing healthcare institutions by continually understanding the KSAs – knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These competencies include patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice (EBP), quality improvement (QI), safety, and informatics. The following paper discusses the above competencies and evaluates how systems thinking affects the quality and safety of the regulators and accreditors. According to Case Western Reserve University (n.d.), nurses should integrate patient-centered care values by communicating sensibly and respectfully while addressing patients' needs to other staff members.
Recognizing, acknowledging, and understanding medication safety is important when administering medications. Understanding which medications are high-risk ones, being familiar with the medications being given, remembering the five most important rights when administering medications, communicating clearly, developing checking habits, and reporting the medication errors will lead to safe outcomes for the residents. However, errors do occur from a lack of experience, rushing, distractions, fatigue, doing too many things at once, not double checking, poor communication, and lack of team work. It is not only the staff that commit errors, but also the work environment that contributes to the medication error. Two examples are poor reporting systems
Fisher Week Three Response to McConnelly Yvonne, your post was extremely intriguing to me as a community health department is not an environment I have had the privilege of experiencing. Interestingly, the utilization of computerized order entry does not prevent the prescriber from ordering an incorrect medication dose or the wrong drug (Lapane, Waring, Dube’, & Schneider, 2011). Do the facility employ process to assure nurses are checking the medication in order to avoid the administration of an incorrect drug or dosage? Distractions have been linked to medication errors, consequently, and the ability to care for a solitary patient at one time clearly minimizes the distractions and interruptions that a nurse may experience during medication
Reflection on Medication Administration Description (Competency 3j) I have looked over my moral development regarding medicine administration and have noticed there is the need for improved and has been agreed with my mentor to write a piece of reflection to identify areas of concern Feelings One of the major concern is the pace of dispensing and the time spent used to open charts and allocate them is one of my weakness. Although I am learner I need to back up the pace of dispensing so that patient doesn 't feel my skills is dull or boring and waste of time. I Had developed that feeling of being extra careful to avoid drug error and that makes me feel slightly nervous more also being under the influence of supervision as well. Evaluation
The project for Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) began in 2005; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the project. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the largest philanthropy, which solely focused on health; the foundation's goal is to improve the health and health care of all Americans. The project was launched to teach quality and safety competencies to the future nurses. The QSEN's goal is to give the opportunity for the future nurses to meet the challenges, like knowledge, skills, and attitudes, that they are preparing for the healthcare systems. The six competencies need to be and defined in order for the goal of QSEN to be accomplished.
In the leadership in care delivery course, we were assigned to a hospital to perform clinical hours and provide care to four patients. Additionally, the purpose of this paper is to explain and provide examples on how our patient care included the concepts of Quality and Safety Education for Nursing (QSEN) competencies, delegation, handoff reporting, and a reflection of the clinical experience. Quality and Safety Education for Nursing (QSEN) Competencies QSEN consists of six competencies: patient centered care, quality improvement, teamwork and collaboration, safety, informatics, and evidence based practice. To provide patient-centered care, I had to educate the patient when administering medications on why the patient was taking the medication and side effects. Care had to be individualized with each patient and it included providing respect with his or her decisions in their care.
Lewis, Stephens, and Ciak (2016) confirmed that the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) initiative was developed to determine competencies for nursing students based upon Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations with the main goal of QSEN is to establish a cultural change toward quality and safety. According to QSEN (2014), addresses the challenge of preparing future nurses with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) are essential components of improving the quality and safety of the healthcare systems. Furthermore, the QSEN six competencies for nursing that targets the KSA to guarantee future graduates to develop competencies in patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement,
PHARMACIST-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP: Optimal medication management requires an effective relationship between the patient and health care professional. As pharmacists move from the traditional dispensing role to become more actively involved in patient care, factors influencing their relationship with patients need to be identified. A better understanding of these factors will facilitate more effective relationships. Pharmacists' professional roles have transformed to include provision of information, education, and pharmaceutical care services.
Evidence-based resources/books are available to prevent medication error, strategies to be used to ensure correct medication administration and high alert medication require extra caution when administering can improve the student nurse’s ability to think analytically and solve medication administration problems. The Nursing student must be taught math calculation for medication administration often. Adequate practice with real problem solving can effectively reinforce these skills and provide the
How do clinical pharmacists care for patients? Clinical pharmacists: • Provide a consistent process of patient care that ensures the appropriateness, effectiveness, and safety of the patient’s medication use. • Consult with the patient’s physician(s) and other health care provider(s) to develop and implement a medication plan that can meet the overall goals of patient care established by the health care team. • Apply specialized knowledge of the scientific and clinical use of medications, including medication action, dosing, adverse effects, and drug interactions, in performing their patient care activities in collaboration with other members of the health care team.