Medication Errors - Term Paper Example

Medication Errors Introduction In nursing, and indeed the healthcare system in general, preserving and promoting human health stands out as the main goals. With this regard, patient safety critically affects the ability to maintain the quality of healthcare services. To raise patient safety, then medication errors have to be kept on the minimum. This paper reviews the significance of medication errors in nursing, specifically incorporating it to the ER nursing and how I would gain requisite knowledge to overcome the associated barriers. Significance Medication errors risk harming patients and their families. According to the US Food and Drug Administration, FDA (2013), medication error refers to a preventable event that causes inappropriate medication use or harms patients while the medication is under the charge of the consumer, patient or healthcare professional. This occurs through administration of the wrong medication, within the wrong time interval and by the wrong route and dosage oversubscription or failure to administer medication. Such errors are costly in the nursing practice with research showing that they cause the deaths of 7,000 Americans every year (Anderson & Townsend, 2010). The associated medical complications cost about $77 million per year, and increases hospitalization cost by between $2,000 and $2,500 per patient. Furthermore, they prolong hospital stays for victims for an average of 2 days (Ehsani, Cheraghi, Nejati, Salari, Esmaeilpoor, & Nejad, 2013). These statistics show the adversity of medication errors in the country hence the importance of gaining insights on this issue. Therefore, with our aim as healthcare professionals being to enhance and maintain patient safety, this topic of medication errors serves as a critical source of the requisite knowledge and guideline for formulating appropriate solutions. Incorporation into Practice Whereas medication errors could occur in any given clinical setting, the emergency room presents an even higher risk for medication errors. This follows the fact that ER has unpredictable experiences and is fast-paced. In fact, of the adverse cases reported, 3% occurred in the ER, with medication errors occurring twice as much in ER as compared to inpatient setting (Ehsani et al., 2013). Furthermore, over 75% of visits to the ER entail the administration or prescription of medications, with the US recording over 210 million medication encounters in the ER annually (Dabaghzadeh et al., 2013). It is from these medication administration and prescription that medication errors occur in ER with Hillin and Hicks (2010) finding out that 1 in each dose prescribed in ER involved administration errors. With this elevated risk, it would be important to find appropriate solutions for medication errors in ER. A multidisciplinary approach should be undertaken to curb medication errors in ER, coupled with systems-related changes. The national database would provide appropriate data to identify the trend and nature of medication errors and thus assist members to identify and undertake appropriate preventive measures. Some of these measures as documented by Anderson and Townsend (2010) and FDA (2013) include computerized order entry systems, bar-coding systems, standardizing processes of medication use and automated dispensing cabinets among others. Even with these propositions, I believe that curbing medication errors entails the development of appropriate culture that would promote the reporting of medication errors and non-punitive and systematic error elimination approaches. Building Knowledge To build on my knowledge on medication errors, I would subscribe to at least one bulletin, newsletter or journal per month that informs on current trends of medication errors, including those specific to ER. Of foundational significance to this strategy would be the sources from the American Nurses Association, ANA. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing would be among the significant sources that would keep me posted on developments in medication errors, including emergent strategies to curb the problem. This would enable me to appreciate the risk factors associated with medication errors and further get enlightened on leveraging on technological approaches to keep the problem at the minimum. Even more importantly, it would be beneficial to relate theoretical facts to clinical practice. According to FDA (2013), it is a requirement that all drugs have a standard facts label on them so as to enable consumers compare and select the appropriate medicines. The labels give information on the active ingredients, dosage, uses, warnings, directions and other relevant information. I seek to sample at least one medicine label per week, get aware of the names of the medicines and study the information on the labels. With a regular review of these labels, I would become accustomed to the drugs, making it difficult to make errors in administering such drugs. More so, such information would enable me to relate supplementary drugs used and their administration, thus keep chances of medication errors on the low. Outside Resources There are numerous resources that would positively help in the advancement of my knowledge in medication errors. From the Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, the article, ‘Medication Errors of Nurses in the Emergency Department,’ which records an exploration of the rate of reporting medication errors, the types of errors and their causes, presents critical insights into the medication errors in ER. The descriptive study which used a sample of 94 ER nurses appreciates medication errors as a major nursing problem in ER (Ehsani et al., 2013). Giving recommendations on improvement of the situation, the article would thus be useful in understanding solutions to medication errors in ER in addition to gaining foundational knowledge on the nursing issue. The second resource would be drawn from the US Food and Drug Administration, FDA website. The article, ‘Strategies to Reduce Medication Errors: Working to Improve Medication Safety’ provides an overview of medication errors in healthcare. Thus, this becomes a precursor to the understanding of medication errors in ER. More specifically, the article provides the regulatory understanding of the issue and further provides an opportunity to relate medicine administration to the clinical practice. This resource therefore gives a practical perspective of issues related to medication errors. Potential Barriers In the ER setting, nurses would mostly be involved in the administration of medication in person. Furthermore, the ER setting presents a complex environment to work in, especially to administer drugs, Ehasni et al. (2013) appreciating an overcrowded environment with patients in bad conditions, unpleasant physical conditions, noise and negative attitude from colleagues. Acknowledging the fact that “to err is human,” it follows definitely that such an environment promotes medication errors (FDA, 2013).The environment presented by operations in ER would thus be considered as a potential barrier to proper administration of medication. Since processes reliant on human intervention are prone to errors, healthcare practitioners in ER would be better placed leveraging on information and communication technology to undertake these processes. FDA (2013) gives the example of the bar code label which was passed in 2002 as a requirement for the administration of some drugs. In this case, healthcare professionals would employ the bar code scanning equipment resembling those in supermarkets to ensure they issue out the rightful dosage to the rightful patient. A majority of medication errors prevention strategies in ER entails the incorporation of information technology in medical procedures. The need for electronic health record could be costly, including the purchase of the required hardware, installation of software and training of users (Dabaghzadeh et al., 2013; Hillin & Hicks, 2010). Such costs could prove prohibitive. As such, even though FDA (2013) dictates some of these technologies as a requirement, subsidizing the cost of the hardware components would go a long way in enhancing adoption. Subsidies would cut on the cost of acquisition of such equipment making them more affordable to hospitals across board. Conclusion The ER setting presents the most prevalent setting in healthcare for medication errors because of the nature of operations taking place in the environment. Considering the associated deaths and cost implications, the issue of medication errors forms a critical component of nursing education. As such, I seek to regularly source for information from secondary resources and experience drug labels more to gain deeper understanding of the issue. Despite the existence of barriers, the aim should be to foster and maintain patient safety, this being the basic tenet of nursing. References Anderson, P. & Townsend, T. (2010). Medication errors: Don’t let them happen to you. American Nurse Today, 5(3), 23 – 27. Dabaghzadeh, F., Rashidian, A., Torkamandi, H., Alahyari, S., Hanafi, S., Farsaei, S., & javadi, M. (2013). Medication errors in an Emergency Department in a large teaching hospital in Tehran. Iranian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research, 12(4), 937 – 942. Ehsani, S. R., Cheraghi, M. A., Nejati, A., Salari, A., Esmaeilpoor, A. H., & Nejad, E. M. (2013). Medication errors of nurses in the emergency department. Journal of Medical Ethics and History f Medicine, 6(11). Retrieved 26 November 2014 from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3885144/pdf/jmehm-6-11.pdfs Hillin, E. & Hicks, R. W. (2010). Medication errors from an emergency room setting: Safety solutions for nurses. Critical Care Nursing Clinics of North America, 22(2), 191 – 196. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2010.03.011. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2013, December 4). Strategies to reduce medication errors: Working to improve medication safety. Silver Spring, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved 26 November 2014 from http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm143553.htm Read More