IV Drug Administration: Best Practices and Safety Report

This report examines the critical aspects of intravenous (IV) drug administration, focusing on the procedures, safety protocols, and potential complications. The report begins with a nursing student's personal reflection on the challenges of IV administration, specifically addressing the importance of correct injection site selection and adherence to hygiene standards to prevent cross-contamination. It emphasizes the need for proper disposal of equipment and drugs. The report highlights the importance of adhering to protocols, ensuring sterile equipment, verifying medication composition, and assessing patient allergies. Furthermore, the report discusses the potential risks associated with improper techniques, such as damage to blood vessels, infiltration, and phlebitis. The report references the NMBA guidelines and the importance of patient safety. The references cited support the information presented in the report and provide additional resources for further study.

Running Head: IV DRUG ADMINISTRATION
IV DRUG ADMINISTRATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1IV DRUG ADMINISTRATION
Nursing practice requires the understanding of different methods to administer drug in
their patients, and one of them is intravenous drug administration. A thin plastic tube known as a
catheter is inserted to the veins and the dose of medicines are transferred through the injection
ports, which disables the hassle of inserting the injection every time.
As a nursing student, I realized that my weakness in using this catheter is the
misplacement of the site that needs to be injected. Sometimes I forget to clean the injection port
with a cotton swab and it is an essential protocol during intravenous administration as it causes
cross contamination. As it can cause infection at the injection site and it can spread throughout
the whole body. The disposal of these equipment and drugs should be done systematically by
throwing them in separate bins so that there is no contamination (Keers et al. 2015).
The set goal to proceed with the IV drug administration is by following the protocol and
the correct steps so that hand hygiene is maintained, the equipment is sterilized, the composition
of the medicine and the allergies of a patient is confirmed and the correct injection site is
identified before continuing with the insertion. If these points are not followed then the blood
vessels can get damaged, which can cause infiltration and that leads to the leaking of medicine to
the surrounding tissues. Inflammation of veins is a common complication that can occur
(Vijaykumar et al. 2014).
The NMBA guidelines and code of conduct suggests that the patient safety is highest
priority and only enrolled nurses with the medical degree can proceed with this method. The
safety of public is to be maintained by following the guidelines before administrating any
medicines, which is more important in intravenous drug administration (Mellor and Greenhill
2014).

2IV DRUG ADMINISTRATION

3IV DRUG ADMINISTRATION
References
Keers, R.N., Williams, S.D., Cooke, J. and Ashcroft, D.M., 2015. Understanding the causes of
intravenous medication administration errors in hospitals: a qualitative critical incident
study. BMJ open, 5(3), p.e005948.
Mellor, P. and Greenhill, J., 2014. A patient safety focused registered nurse transition to practice
program. Contemporary nurse, 47(1-2), pp.51-60.
Vijayakumar, A., Sharon, E.V., Teena, J., Nobil, S. and Nazeer, I., 2014. A clinical study on
drug-related problems associated with intravenous drug administration. Journal of basic and
clinical pharmacy, 5(2), p.49.