Nurses' Responsibility in the Prevention of Medication Errors - Research Paper Example

? Nurses' Responsibility in the Prevention of Medication Errors al Affiliation) There is no doubt that Nurses play a significant role when it comes to patient safety, with regard to medication. In fact, a vast majority of day to day functions undertaken by nurses directly impact the safety off the care recipients within an organization. Nurses also have the capacity to play an exigent role in averting sentimental events and errors, more specifically medication errors. As identified by research, the most prevalent causes of medication errors include inadequate training, orientation, and education; communication failure; inadequate access to information, and lethargy in ensuring safe access and to and storage of medication. Despite the fact that medication error prevention necessitates holistic action of all disciplines within the healthcare domain, nurses have specific roles hey can play in ensuring these errors are abated if not completely prevented. The paper herein discusses some of the responsibilities nurses are charged with to overcome the prime causes and prevent errors in medication. Overcoming inadequate education, training, and orientation Nurses need to be confident about the knowledge they have ass pertains the administration of medication as well as limitations and functions of devices used in administering medication. In the event that they are not comfortable with any aspect regarding administration of medication, they ought to request ancillary training prior to administering drugs. In addition, they need to have knowledge on and make use of time-honored approaches to reduce the occurrence of these errors. One approach of ensuring that the patient is safeguarded against sentinels in medication is to for nurses to ensure that they have a command of training in the careful verification of every care recipient’s dose of medication against their clinical records (Garber, Gross, & Slonim, 2010). Moreover, they ought to advocate for unit dose systems of administration to facilitate efficiency and limit errors. These systems eliminate multiple doses as well requirements of reconstituting medications. By double-checking the systems, nurses effectively minimize the chance that errors of assumption may occur. Overcoming failures in Communication As valuable and educated members of the healthcare fraternity, nurses ought to be comfortable about questioning pharmacists and physicians about their choice of medications, the doses, the administration routes, reactions, and interactions. Nurses should raise questions to all involved parties to clarify their concerns, before going ahead to administer medication as instructed. They should also clarify orders. More often than not, nurses struggle to make sense out of illegible handwriting and fill out incomplete orders. Prior to administering medication, the nurse needs to ensure that all orders are complete and have been clarified. They have a responsibility to comply with the policies of the organization as afar as safeguarding verbal orders is concerned; for instance spelling or repeating names of drugs and their doses. The clarification of orders is of particular significance within settings in which pharmacists have no opportunity of reviewing he order given by the physician. For instance, nurses in behavioral healthcare, homecare institutions and long-term care regularly communicate orders given by the physician to pharmacists located in a different area via telephone (Prevost 2002). Another responsibility is taking extra caution in light of medications prone to error by increasing communication. Professional literature concerned with health is inundated with reports on medications renowned for having frequent errors in administration. With reference to the institute of Safe Medication Practice (ISMP), the five medications that raise a lot off concern include narcotics and opiates, insulin, injectable potassium concentrate, sodium chloride solutions, and intravenous anticoagulants. As such, nurses need to work together with physicians to detail these medications to enable them clarify such orders prior to administration. The other communication responsibility is to build the capacity of and communicate with the patient receiving the medication. Nurses should explicate to care recipients as well as their close families the kind of medications they once they have administered it. In the event that a new medication is being given to the patient, nurses are obliged to educate care recipients adequately about the medication, affording tem with relevant literature that describes the drug along with the side-effects it might possibly have. Education and communication are instrumental in seeing to it that patients are not given the wrong medication; do not skip a dose, or the chance that medication prescribed for another person is administered to them. Nurses should ask their care recipients to raise their concerns and ask questions as an important part of the accreditation process, nurses ought to highlight the significance that care recipients have in the use of medication (Prevost 2002). Overcoming lack of available information Nurses should also make sure they have access to current and reliable drug information. As earlier mentioned, they need to ask questions with regard to drugs that they are not familiar with. It is therefore prudent that they consult with pharmacists and ask questions in order to receive appropriate information. They also need to take the initiative to access critical information about the patient in a timely manner, so that they can assess how appropriate the medications are (Chiang 2005). Overcoming pitfalls of access to and storage of medication Nurses need to appropriately implement an organization’s procedures and policies about the storage of medication. In spite of the fact that pharmacists emerge as the health practitioners mostly charged with establishing procedures and policies of storing medication, nursing staff are responsible for making sure that these procedures and policies are always followed. They should secure an unattended cart, ensuring that medications are secured and are not left unattended in open areas. Furthermore, nurses are responsible for ensuring that they guard against the theft of medication, especially within units that have medications being placed at bedsides. Bedside storage affords practitioners convenience in administering medication and training care recipients how to self-administer when they transit to their homes. This modus operandi however comes with the pitfall of theft or interference with these drugs by outside parties, and as such may result in poisoning or the medications may not be present for administration during emergency situations (Gellman 2013). Nurses in every shift must confirm that appropriate security measures are upheld. Nurses need to evaluate with pharmacists whether floor stocks are needed in a particular healthcare facility. Pharmacy and nursing representatives need to conduct regular evaluations of floor stocks. Such stocks can potentially result in serious medication errors and lead to adversity amongst patients. Floor stock is regularly used without proper assessment of the medication and possibly leads to clinical errors in medication. For instance, if a patient receives high acetaminophen doses from the floor stock and routine propoxyphene doses are administered, grave complications could emerge for the care recipient and potentially end up in liver toxicity. This potential needs to be considered for all medications that are regarded as floor stock. Using multiple floor stock cabinets runs inadequate accountability risks for small medication holdings. Nurse Representatives should therefore champion to limit medications in floor stock to emergency uses and items like antiseptic solutions and mouthwash that are used on routine basis (Gonzalez & Swanson 2011). Conclusion From the above discussion, it is evident that nurses have an exigent responsibility to uphold in a bid to ensure that errors in medication result. Nurses have an obligation to uphold the stipulate codes of conduct that underpin their action in the healthcare profession. In so doing, they are bound to see to it that healthcare recipients do not end up experiencing errors in medication that can be effectively avoided by taking proactive and elaborate measures. References Top of Form Chiang, H. (2005). Nurses' demographics and perceptions of safety climate, work environment, and barriers to medication administration error reporting in southern Taiwan. New York: McGraw-Hill. Garber, J. S., Gross, M., & Slonim, A. D. (2010). Avoiding common nursing errors. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Gellman, M. D. (2013). Encyclopedia of behavioral medicine. New York, NY: Springer. Gonzales, K., & Swanson, E. A. (2011). Safe medication administration. Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa. Prevost, S. S. (2002). Error and risk reduction. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders. Top of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More