Importance of Medication Safety Report 2022

Written report: Medication Safety
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Introduction
Use of drugs in the clinical care settings is one of the most crucial processes and there are various
challenges in delivering the drugs or medicines to the patients. Any type of medication related errors by the
health care professionals can significantly alter the safety of the patients. According to the study of Lapkin et al.
(2016), medication error is one of the errors that can be easily preventable by the health care professionals. In
this study, it is reported that the process of administration comprised of various steps such as counting,
calculating, measuring, mixing and ensuring and after following this steps, a patient will get actual doses of
medicines at the right time as well. Due to the complex nature of the medication process, there are high chances
of having errors during the care process (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2017). In this essay, factors of
medication errors and its impact on the patient safety are discussed. Along with this, a few strategies to mitigate
the effect of medication errors are also described in a brief manner.
Body
While analysing the factors associated with the medication errors, the following reasons can be
identified.
Factor One
One of the main reasons of facing medication errors in the hospital care setting is
associated with the lack of appropriate knowledge among the nurses. According to the
study of Aschenbrenner (2015), it is reported that, in most of the cases, the nurses have
poor knowledge regarding the doses of the medicines and as a result they may face errors
regarding the calculations of the medicine. In this study, it is reported that, the most of the
nurses have low amount of numeracy skills and thus there is a high chances of providing
wrong medicines to the patients. It is reported that, wrong delivery of medicines to the
patient may cause adverse effect to the patients. Hence, it is very crucial to provide accurate
doses of medicines to the patients.
Factor Two
Another crucial factor that can contribute to the cases of medication error is
associated with the poor communication among the nursing personnel and doctors engaged
in the treatment process of patients. Poor communication can cause knowledge gap among
the doctors and nurses and thereby the circulation of the information regarding the patients
is hampered (Lapkin et al., 2016). Therefore, it can be said that poor circulation of the patient
information in the patient care setting may cause alteration of the patient safety as well.
According to the study of Cheragi et al. (2013), it is reported that, poor communication skills
of the nurses is highly correlated with the cases of medication errors in the hospital care
settings. In this study, almost 64.55% of nurses reported about the medication errors dur to
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the poor communication and within the three month time period, only 39.68% of errors were
not repeated.
Factor Three
Another factor that is associated with the medication errors in the clinical care
settings is the use of abbreviation and the use of complex names of the drugs in the
clinical care settings is also associated with medication errors. The study of
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2017), reported that, due to the use of
complex names of medicines in the wards of the hospital , the nurses may face issue
of confusion during the delivery of care and thereby causes the medication errors.
For example it can be said that, Vortioxetine is sold under the brand name of
Trintelix and as result there is a chances of confusion in between this two names
(Cloete, 2015).
Conclusion
Therefore, the lack of adequate knowledge, confusion in between the brand
names of the medicines and poor communication process among the doctors and
nurses are primarily associated with the medication errors in the health care settings.
For applying the evidence based practice on the clinical placement, the health care
professionals must research about the medication errors due to the lack of
knowledge among the nurses and communication skills of the nurses. After
reviewing the condition in a proper manner, the health care professionals must
implement the best policy for the clinical care settings in order to reduce the
medication errors in the clinical care settings (Singh, 2015). .
First strategy
In order to enhance the level of knowledge among the nurses in the clinical
care settings, there must be proper awareness programs of the nurses in the
hospital care settings. In various studies, it is reported that, the application of the
awareness program in the hospital care settings, has become successful in
improving the condition of the medication errors and thereby the issue of patients’
safety will also be improved (Cloete, 2015).
Second strategy
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As a part of the improvement of the communication among the nurses and the
doctors, the effective use of electronic health record system can be prescribed. This
system will allow the doctors and the nurses to improve the communication skills as
by using this system, the doctors and nurses can easily access all the information
related to the health of the patients and thereby may cause reduction of medication
errors in the hospitals. Hence, the application of this system will also help in the
improvement of the patients’ safety and will enhance the patients’ satisfaction
(Latimer et al., 2017).
Third strategy
As a part of the third strategy, it is recommended that, the full name of the
prescribed drugs in the prescription must be written and along with this, the generic
names of the drugs should also be written instead of the brand names of the drugs.
In many cases it is reported that, same brand names of the two different medicines is
associated with the cases of medication errors (Ellis et al., 2012). Hence, it can be
said that, the use of proper brand name along with the generic names of the drugs
may improve the medication errors in the hospital care settings (Murray et al., 2019).
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References
Aschenbrenner, D. S., 2015.’Similar Brand Names Lead To Medication Errors’. AJN,
American Journal of Nursing, 115(12), pp-24.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2017. Hospital resources 2015–16:
Australian hospital statistics. Viewed on 26th August 2019, Retrieved from-
https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/d37a56cb-dc6b-4b28-a52f-
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Cheragi, M.A., Manoocheri, H., Mohammadnejad, E. and Ehsani, S.R., 2013. ‘Types
and causes of medication errors from nurse's viewpoint’. Iranian journal of
nursing and midwifery research, 18(3), p.228.
Cloete, L., 2015. ‘Reducing medication errors in nursing practice’. Cancer Nursing
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Cohen, M. R.,2017. Medication Errors. Nursing, 47(1), 72.
Ellis, J., Parush, A., Taing, M., Campbell, C., Des, P.E.M., Chiu, C., Eldred, S.,
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Medication Errors with High Alert Drugs: Testing the iDoseCheck’ . Canadian
Journal of Nursing Informatics, 7(1). pp- 21-27
Lapkin, S., Levett-Jones, T., Chenoweth, L., & Johnson, M., 2016. ‘The effectiveness
of interventions designed to reduce medication administration errors: a synthesis
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845–858.
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Latimer, S., Hewitt, J., Stanbrough, R., & McAndrew, R. , 2017. ‘Reducing
medication errors: Teaching strategies that increase nursing students' awareness
of medication errors and their prevention’
Murray, B., Streitz, M. J., Hilliard, M., & Maddry, J. K. ,2019. ‘Evaluation of an
Electronic Dosing Calculator to Reduce Pediatric Medication Errors’. Clinical
Pediatrics’. 4(3), pp- 121-126
Singh, N. R. 2015. Nursing: The Ultimate Study Guide. Springer Publishing
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Vaismoradi, M., Jordan, S., Turunen, H., & Bondas, T.,2014. ‘Nursing students’
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