Medication Administration and Safety Guidelines: A Review

Running head: UNIT 3 TASK 3
UNIT 3 TASK 3
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UNIT 3 TASK 3
Medicines are substances that are used in the treatment of different diseases for
management of various conditions and relieving them off different symptoms. Medications are
mainly considered safe only when they are used or administered as prescribed or as directed on
the label (Rutledge, Retrosi and Ostrowiski 2018). However, many risks are also seen in
association with the taking or administering of medications. Therefore, this assignment will
mainly show how medication administration and safety guidelines need to be reviewed and
analyzed. It will also show how medication safety maintenance would result in better patient
satisfaction and safe care to patients.
Wrong medication, improper dose of medication, medication at wrong time, wrong routes
and many others can prove to be fatal for the life of the patients as they can expose the patient to
life threatening situations, long stays at the hospital, readmission in the hospitals, poor quality
life and high level of suffering. Hence, the professionals need to be skilled and knowledgeable so
that medication errors do not occur and the best quality safe practices are provided to the patients
(Alomari et al. 2018). Therefore, concerned nursing professional should take the responsibility to
conduct effective evaluation in order to check that the medication policies, guidelines as well as
the practices conducted by the healthcare professionals are evidence based and free from risks
from any medication hazards. The higher authority should first review to find whether the
contents of the policies are sufficient to help the professionals as guidelines for effective
maintenance of medication safety. The review committees should first check whether proper
guidelines for checking patient information are given in the policy or not (Parry, Barriball and
White 2015). Proper ways of patient specific identifiers, verification of allergies and reactions
are provided or not, highlighting of critical diagnosis and conditions, updating of current
medications, standardizing height and weight measurements are present or not. The guidelines

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UNIT 3 TASK 3
and the practices should also involve proper drug information like maintenance of drug
preferences, maintaining proper drug guidelines, identification of high alert medications and
many others. Another important review that should be done of the effective maintenance of the
medication safety is the development of an organizational culture that would be including
effective communication among members and also between members and higher authorities. The
policy should also be comprising of effective sharing of information among the members,
improvement of handwriting, and avoiding any problematic abbreviations. The orders should be
read back, using of the electronic systems and effective labeling and storage like separation of
problematic drugs, keeping the storage area well organized, controlling the access to medications
and many others. Another important aspect of the review would be to learn how well the
healthcare professionals are aligning with the principles mentioned in the policies and guidelines.
The evaluation committee would be conducting safety audits for physicians, pharmacies as well
as the nurses by development of proper set of questionnaires where their answers would help to
develop ideas their knowledge, skills and daily practices (Nanji et al. 2016). Moreover,
observational tasks should also be adopted where the evaluation officers would be checking on
the procedures conducted by the healthcare professionals in order to identify their training needs.
Accordingly, training sessions would be conducted to help them develop their skills. Researchers
say that medication error often remains under recorded, as the professionals believe that it might
affect their career and result in cancellation of license. The higher authorities should influence a
culture where such recording are self-reported and effective support and guidance are provided
to the professionals so that they can develop their future practices rather than carrying on with
their incompetent skills.