Medication Error: Impacts on Nursing Practice and Patient Safety

This article sheds light on the issue of medication errors and its impacts on both patients and professionals. Strategies to mitigate the issues are also discussed. The article discusses the significance of medication errors to nursing and how it affects patient safety. The article concludes by discussing strategies that can be utilized to minimize the impact of medication errors on nursing practice and patient safety.

Running head: MEDICATION ERROR
MEDICATION ERROR
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author notes:

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Introduction:
Medication error is considered as one of the biggest concern of the present day healthcare
system. Due to its varied negative effects, the government of healthcare is trying its best to
mitigate the problem in different ways. Medication error is the preventable event that has the
potential to cause inappropriate medication administration by healthcare professionals. This
results in harm to the patients to an extent that may threaten their lives as well as result in their
suffering to large degree (Cloete, 2015). Therefore, most of the organizations are trying their best
to adopt strategies that help them to overcome the issues. The thesis statement is that
“medication error has potential negative effects on both nursing profession and safety of patients
and therefore strategies need to be taken to prevent the occurrence of such issues in the
future.”This assignment will mainly help to shed light on the issue along with its impacts on both
patients and professionals. Strategies to mitigate the issues will also be discussed.
Define the professional issue.
Medication error can be defined as the failure in the treatment failure procedure
conducted by healthcare professionals that has the potential to cause harm in patients. Although
medicines are mainly products that prevent or care various kinds of disorders, they also have the
potential to cause harmful reactions if not used correctly. Different types of medication errors
may take place where the most common form of error reported by FDA is improper dose of
medicine (Hayes et al., 2015). This form of error is common in 41% of the total reported
medication error cases. Moreover, giving the wrong drug or using an improper route of
administration is also other causes of medication errors that accounts for about 16% of the errors
(Lan et al., 2014). Several other causes of medication error may result from inaccurate recording

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and transcribing orders and due to unclear and erroneous labelling of drugs. Besides,
misidentification of the client by the healthcare professionals or incomplete deliveries of drugs
are also of the other types of medication errors. Moreover, verification errors, having inaccurate
knowledge base and even time and performance pressure are also of the other reasons. They have
severe negative health outcomes of patients resulting in very poor quality of lives (Elliot et al.,
2016).
Discuss the significance of your chosen professional issue to nursing.
Researchers are of the opinion that healthcare is always conducted under stressful
situations in a high consequence system where there is an increased potential for the occurrence
of error. The level of professional as well as personal responsibilities of the healthcare
professional for patient care along with the expectations surrounding these responsibilities also
carry a certain weight and burden. Therefore, medication errors are incomplete conflicts with the
goals of alleviating the suffering of service users (Hayes et al., 2015). Interviews conducted of
experienced nurses have revealed that in most healthcare centres, there is a culture of blame and
silence that is related to error. The main consequence of this care is culture results in under-
reporting of such error events to the authority that often accompanies severe self-blame among
the healthcare professionals (Lane et al., 2014). This culture has also been seen to hinder
different types of improvements in practices as well as systems. Severe other emotional impacts
are also seen to be associated with such form medication error events. They suffer from various
forms of doubt and self blame themselves that make them not only anxious but also depressed.
Nurses have also stated to suffer from loss of sleep for consecutive number of days after the
occurrence of such events (Harris et al., 2014). Moreover, many of the nurses are also seen to
lack confidence in their job that affect their practices in various ways. They tend to lack the

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confidence in their approach towards their patients and this lack of confidence is reflected in
their body language (Vaisamoradi et al., 2014). This affects the therapeutic relationship between
the patients and the nurses. Moreover feeling of anxiety, guilt and remorse are also feelings that
remain associated with them. On the other hand, providers are seen to suffer from various types
of legal obligations as well. Many of the organisations expose the nursing professionals to legal
obligations. In many cases, the patients and their families also take such actions. All these
actions have a huge impact on the career of the nurses. Either they tend to leave the job out of
shame or are even their license gets cancelled where sever impacts take place on the patents
(Karavasiliadou & Athanouski, 2014). Researchers conducted with nursing professionals had
stated that guilt and shame are the most common feelings that they go through when such
mistakes are made by them. About twenty percent of the professionals who have conducted the
disorder had stated that they had gone through phases when they cannot gain back their self-
confidence of practicing healthcare and were seen to question their own skills and professional
competence (Ulas et al., 2015). Another important feeling that was also marked was that the
nursing professionals felt angered towards their team as a whole. However, eighty percent of the
interviewees had clearly stated that the adverse events had stayed back in their memories as a
fixed event. Nurses have stated that “heart racing, dry mouth, tunnel vision as you look again at
the vial in your hand and realization kicks in – you’ve just pushed 5mg of Midazolam IV instead
of Metoclopromide” (Lan et al., 2014). Many of the nurses do not report these incidents out of
fear stating that their career may be destroyed. They also state that too harsh punishments are
given for medication errors for which the culture of non-reporting by the other nurses have come
up (Alsweed et al., 2014). Therefore, healthcare organizations should be encouraged to be

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accountable for their actions and take initiatives to report their activities so that better healthcare
culture can be developed.
Discuss how your chosen professional issue affects patient safety:
A huge number of negative consequences result from the medication error by the
professionals that result in poor quality lives of the patients. Often many of the research papers
had stated that some of the effects of medication error are long stays of the patients at hospitals.
Medical complications may also take place that result in huge suffering of the patients making
them lead poor quality lives (Vaisamoradi et al., 2014). Medication errors conducted by the
professional may have temporary as well as permanent effects on the body causing impairment
in body structures as well as functions. These may include different mental, sensory, physical
complication that may or may not accompany pain. Researchers have grouped a number of
negative effects under the category of physical implications (Ulas et al., 2015). They have stated
that medication error may range from no notable effect of the health of the patient to that of even
unavoidable deaths in the healthcare canters. In the former result, although the patient is not at
the risk of losing life but wring medication or low dose medication may extend the period of
treatment or may fail to reduce the pain and suffering of the patients. This, in a way, results to
improper care service delivery resulting in extending their stay at the hospital and increased
suffering (Karavasiliadou & Athanouski, 2014). Other physical impairments that associate with
medication errors include occurrence of new conditions and adverse symptoms that may be
temporary and permanent. Patient reported symptoms include ringing in the ears, hypotension,
skin disfigurement, itching, tingling and many others. This could include mild as well as
different types of serious issues (Wright & Khatri, 2015). This may be explained by an example.
When a nursing professional provides improper dose of penicillin, it may undergo reaction

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resulting in the formation of rash as well as anaphylactic shock. Another professional who
provides a wrong dose of heparin may expose the person to even deaths as well. Apart from
various implications of medication errors like pain, nausea, vomiting and many others, emotional
implications of medication errors can also be noted (Alsweed et al., 2014). Patients become
stressed and depressed as they become concerned with the fate of the treatment or whether they
would be able to come back to normal lives. Many of the patients also feel angered and betrayal
as they feel that the healthcare professionals are not performing their duties respectfully and
behaving unprofessionally making their lives vulnerable to threats (Kerstenetzky et al., 2018).
Many of the patients are also seen to suffer from self-doubts as well as self-blame as many of the
patients have been seen to state “maybe it’s because I’m old, maybe it’s my fault” and many
others. Such incidences are also seen to develop fear of taking future medicines after incidences
of medication errors occur with them that make them go through near death experiences (Wright
& Khatri, 2015). Financially as well, they are seen to suffer massively as long hospital stays
make them expose to spending of huge number of resources and finance. This financial drain not
only affects the patients but even family members to large extent (Harris et al., 2014). Insurance
co-pays, lost wages, disability costs and other childcare costs all remain associated with
medication errors of the students. On a personal front, the patients are seen to be demoralized
from the extended length of stay. They also tend to develop altered belief in the benefits of the
medication (Nanji et al., 2016). They are even seen to lose confidence on the healthcare
professionals as well as on the healthcare service of the organization. Therefore, they either
develop apathy to comply with the healthcare professionals or are seen to develop fear-getting
service from the professionals or the healthcare organizations.

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Discuss the strategies that can be utilised to minimise the impact of your chosen professional
issue on nursing practice and patient safety.
A number of strategies can be incorporated to reduce medication errors in the
organisations. One of the most important is development of a culture in the healthcare workplace
where communication flows in all directions. Effective sharing of information, improvement of
handwriting of the healthcare professionals, avoiding problematic abbreviations should be
inculcated as important behaviours for medication error prevention (Kerstenetzky et al., 2018).
Similar drug names should be taken care of especially during communication, advising other
professionals or even during own practices so that errors can be avoided (Nienman et al., 2015).
Using of electronic system should be promoted which can eliminate illegible handwriting and
prevent automate screening for allergies, duplication of therapy and other drug-drug interactions.
Another important strategy that should be also taken is responsible labelling and storage of
drugs. This would include learning of proper handling of medications by separating drugs with
lookalike names, separating high alert medications from other medicines and many others
(Harris et al., 2014). The storage area should also be well organised so that medication errors do
not take place. Proper control of accessing to medications should be done where healthcare
professionals should be able to lock and secure his or her practice medication storage area after
use. Strict procedures of logging, storing as well as monitoring samples of drugs should be
followed. Medications dispensed to patients should be well maintained by mentioning the name
of the medication, dose, strength, frequency, purpose, expiration date, quantity of medication
along with name of the patients, dispensing and prescribing information (Harris et al., 2014).
This helps in making in reducing the chances of medication. Moreover, the organisation should
train their staffs to use the devices properly like the correct use of right syringes and others

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(Nienman et al., 2015). The organisation should also take initiatives where the performance of
the practice of the nursing professionals should be assed. The nursing professionals should be
able to reflect upon their own performance, on the errors, that they have made or were about to
make and thereby adapt practices that will help them to prevent errors (Nanji et al., 2016).
Conclusion:
From the entire discussion above, it becomes quite clear that medication errors have a
number of negative effects on the patient but also on the professionals. The safest of the patient
is affected as they suffer from physical, emotional, financial and personal implications. This
affects their quality lives making them stay for long in the hospitals, hospital readmission or even
unavoidable deaths. The professionals also go through emotional turmoil resulting in loss of
confidence, guilt, and shame and even disruptive career growth. Therefore, proper strategies
need to be applied by which the healthcare professionals as well as the organizations can ensure
practices that prevents medication errors.

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References:
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provider order entry system on nursing workflow, patient safety, and medication errors:
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Elliott, R. A., Lee, C. Y., Beanland, C., Vakil, K., & Goeman, D. (2016). Medicines
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Harris, M. A., Pittiglio, L., Newton, S. E., & Moore, G. (2014). Using simulation to improve the
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Karavasiliadou, S., & Athanasakis, E. (2014). An inside look into the factors contributing to
medication errors in the clinical nursing practice. Health science journal, 8(1).

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Kerstenetzky, L., Birschbach, M. J., Beach, K. F., Hager, D. R., & Kennelty, K. A. (2018).
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