The nurses' responsability in the prevention of medication errors - Essay Example

With the number of law suits rising in the country regarding medical malpractices, the quality of care needs not be assumed, and must at all times be considered as a crucial aspect in medical practice (Reason, 2000). The author continues to argue that medical practitioners have faced disciplinary issues, shame and threats due to malpractices. Nurses’ role Since nurses are major players in offering medical care, they are concerned with the health of an individual from the onset of medication to the end (Cohen, 2007).

In light to this argument, it is argued that nurses play the major role of ensuring that they understand the major factors that lead to errors in the medical provision. This role of prevention of errors is crucial in the prevention of medical errors (Cohen, 2007). Among these errors are inclusive of incorrect calculations of medical dosages, improper consultations, inexperience, and failure to adhere to the set protocols amongst others (Cohen, 2007). With these avenues of medical errors in place, the quality of medical service is then jeopardized.

In this case, the nurse should play the major role of ensuring that they minimize the avenues of cropping up of medical errors as possible. A good example is that of the nurses’ conversance with the FEMA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) that has been instrumental in alleviating chemotherapy errors (Hartranft, Sheridan-Leos & Schulmeister, 2006). Nurses are able to come up with thoughts on how to safeguard the safety of the patient care. Despite the fact that, Cohen (2007) indicates that the nurses are mostly forced by the management to cause some of these errors, they are should be on the frontline to ensure that they minimize as many challenges as they can.

Secondly, in the medical setting, they must have vast experimental knowledge in the concerned field (Cohen, 2007). This allows the nurses have a big picture of the entire case, always counter check the medical history of a patient prior to making any form of conclusion (Cima, ?2011). This means that, the nurse is able to offer assistance by advocating for patient’s safety; thus, prevention of the occurrence of any form of delay in the institution. In this case, Cima (?2011) indicates that team work is possible, as well as involving leadership as a theme that allows nurses describe the various mechanisms of dealing with nurses’ errors.

Thirdly, the nurses play the role of discovering the number and type of errors they make in the course of duty. As argued by Hwang et. al (2008), a majority of the errors made by nurses are inclusive of poor breakdown of workflow, which emanates from wrong identification of the patients, and using the wrong information on another patient (Patel et al., 2008). Besides that, it is also possible that the nurses mis-transfuse blood, which may cause adverse haemolytic reaction among the patients in question (Mole et. al, 2007).

In the work of Bates and Kim (2006) and Escoto et. al (2008), nurses have a major role of correcting medical errors. This is possible by devising a medical error reporting system in the health institutio