Using Evidence Based Practice to Improve Medication Administration among Nurses

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1NURSING
Introduction
Registered nurse plays a vital role in medication administration. In a complex and hectic
hospital environment, it is a demanding task for them to accomplish the task without any adverse
drug events. Despite increased availability of tools and technology to reduce such errors, high
rate of medication administration errors continue to be a major burden for the health care system
(Barak et al., 2018). Medication administration is a core responsibility of nurses and they often
get involved in medication administration error because of complex mixture of demands (patient
demands, physical environment, technical devices and institutional policies). This depicts how
medication administration is a challenging job for nurses (Pirinen et al., 2015). Nurses are
seriously affected by medication error related incidences and the perspective of nurse shows such
errors occur mainly due to poor communication, staff rotation, workload and unclear medication
order (Hammoudi, Ismaile & Abu Yahya, 2018). Hence, to promote patient safety and reduce
involvement in medication error cases, there is a need to make nurses aware about the best
strategy to complete medication administration process despite barriers and interruptions. This
essay aims to improve the knowledge and practice related to medication administration among
nurse by using the steps of evidence based practice (EBP). The discussion will give an insight
into the methods by which EBP can support nurse to improve their clinical skills related to
medication administration and enhance patient safety.
Use of the EBP process to improve nursing practice
Research evidence on nurse’s involvement in medication errors suggest that several
disruptions and barriers in clinical environment increase the risk of medication administration for
nurse (Hammoudi, Ismaile & Abu Yahya, 2018). The essay acknowledges the potential of EBP

2NURSING
in improving this practice issue and finding best interventions to reduce incidence of such errors.
EBP is the process used to integrate best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient
values (LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 2017). These three components define any clinical decision
and the five steps of the EBP plays a role in improving practice related challenges. In case of the
nursing practice issue of nurse’s engagement in medication administration error, the five steps of
the EBP process can help find strong evidence regarding the best interventions to prevent
medication errors and promote patient safety.
Formulating the research question:
The first step of the EBP process involves formulation of an answerable research
question. In the context of nursing practice, questions are triggered by challenges or confusion
during specific patient encounters or while performing any routine nursing responsibility. The
need for information in the area of prevention, diagnosis, prognosis and therapy helps to create a
clinical question (Doody & Bailey, 2016). Hence, these questions can be addressed from
different angles such as diagnosis, etiology, prevention and experience. The issue of nurse’s
engagement in medication administration error aims to identify preventive steps to reduce such
patient safety risk for patient. Hence, the question that can help to find evidence for preventing
medication error include:
‘How can nurse’s skill be adjusted to reduce the risk of medication administration error?
PICOT format can be used to create a searchable research question as it defines the
population, intervention, comparison, outcome, and time frame (Meyer, 2017). For this research
question, the population include nurses, intervention includes best interventions to prevent