Patient Safety: Medication Errors and Patient-Centered Care Analysis

This report focuses on enhancing patient safety within healthcare settings. It emphasizes the importance of patient-centered care, where healthcare is tailored to individual patient needs, leading to better treatment outcomes. The report highlights the significance of safe medication practices, including adhering to the 5 Rs of drug administration (right drug, right dosage, right time, right patient, and right route) to prevent medication errors, which can have severe consequences such as toxicity and adverse drug interactions. It also mentions the role of the Institute of Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) in helping healthcare staff understand and prevent medication errors through reporting and recommendations. The report references key studies that support the importance of these practices in improving patient safety and overall healthcare quality.

Healthcare
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Operationalizing Preventing Harm
Patient safety can be enhanced more efficiently by the use of a patient-centered approach
(Jarrar, et al. 2019). This is a model that involves the delivery of care to patients based on their
individuals' needs. In the past, it was feared that this approach would interfere with the urge to
provide evidence-based treatment. However, evidence-based treatment, nowadays, consider
patient-centered care as the most important approach when delivering care. This model promotes
patient safety since it aims at achieving better treatment outcomes since the individual's needs of
each patient are assess and evaluated, then addressed accordingly (Wagner, et al. 2019).
Therefore, the healthcare staff should be educated more on how to incorporate a patient-focused
approach in their practice in order to ensure better health outcomes.
Practicing safe medication also aids significantly in ensuring patient safety (Sheen, &
Goffman, 2019). Medication errors, such as the wrong prescription have costed the lives of many
patients. Patients have also experienced toxicity, allergies and even encountered adverse drug
interaction effects as a result of medication errors. The 5Rs of drug administration should also be
adhered to keenly to prevent medication errors (Archer, 2015). This include; right drug, right
dosage, right time, right patient and right route. The institute of safe medication practices (ISMP)
was formed as a non-profit organization to assist healthcare staff in comprehending errors that
may happen during medication, gather reports the mistakes made and give proper
recommendations to prevent similar errors in the future.

References
Jarrar, M. T., Minai, M. S., Al‐Bsheish, M., Meri, A., & Jaber, M. (2019). Hospital nurse shift
length, patient‐centered care, and the perceived quality and patient safety. The
International journal of health planning and management, 34(1), e387-e396.
Wagner, C., Kristensen, S., Sousa, P., & Panteli, D. (2019). Patient safety culture as a quality
strategy. Improving healthcare quality in Europe, 287.
Sheen, J. J., & Goffman, D. (2019). Emerging Role of Drills and Simulations in Patient
Safety. Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinics, 46(2), 305-315.
Archer, A. (2015). Medication errors: an unacceptable gamble. Nursing and Residential
Care, 17(7), 393-397.