Medical Errors and PICOT Statement

Introduction

Increases in cases of medical errors render the health care administration and patient in a problem of what can be done to reduce the incidences of the common medical errors in the health facilities. In an attempt to explore the most practical solution, several questions have to address. Such matters include the procedures that the medication prescription follows, and the question is; does it affects the medical errors?

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PICOT

PICOT questions is a layout abbreviation used in framing the research questions to be applied to a given specific group or population purposely for research work. The formatting helps in fast evidence collection and construction of researchable questions. PICOT questions are majorly applied in the evidence-based of nursing practice fields. Such issues are either prognosis, diagnosis, therapeutic or Etiology. PICOT questions comprise of the following key components.

Amid the patient diagnosed in the hospital, and intensive care unit (P), does fixing medical errors by having professional nurses (I), as prescribed in the nursing codes of ethics (C), improve the patient condition (O), at the time ailment period of the patient (T)?

Quantitative Research Critique

Currently, most of the health institutions are facing the challenges of having the right medical personnel to serve at various departments. In some cases, there are issues of understaffing, and lack of professionals. As such, the medical errors are getting witnessed at a much high rate, which is indeed worrying to the sector. Computerized physician order entry system could be the ideal way to deal with the trouble. In actual sense, this is an evidence-based practice are depicted in various publications. The idea here is to have quality service delivery which will enhance the quality of life among the sick individuals (West et al., 2014). The research evidence further supports that, some mortality rates and complication may be prevented by increasing the number of nurses who are highly competent to look after one patient. The research is therefore required to critically examine the bonding between the clinical outcome and the reduced number of medical prescription errors.

In the first place, there is the need for the health facilities to urgently address the professional nursing staffing menace to meet the patient requirements. Specifically within the critical care where the patient needs a more continuous monitor of the qualified personnel due to previous research that has painted out that the considerable proportion of the medication errors are brought about by the unqualified professionals (Kon et al., 2016). Then this prompts the need to have a way of handling the medical challenge which is widely spread. It is probable that increasing or addressing the professional understaffing problems by the health facilities will improve the quality of health outcome.

The intensive care unit provides patients with the critical care services that they need; therefore, this influences the rate of mortality, and the duration of the hospital stay meaning it increases the health service quality and outcome. Though the nurse's witnesses these outcomes, they ought to detect the relationship existing between the patient treatment outcome and support of professional nursing staff. They must identify caring or supportive factors and the limiting factors that hinder the improvement of quality service of the Intensive care unit.

Purpose and Research Questions in the Study

(PICOT Question)

The researcher's objective is to establish the significance of intervention programs to handling the medication error challenge in the nursing profession. Various causes of the given nursing issue which in this case is the medical errors will need some emphasis. In the first place, the study intends to assess the input of the professional nurses and how the less competent personnel are causing havoc in the area. Such a problem could be due to understaffing which is still an issue of scrutiny. Also, this will examine the nursing staffing correlation with the rate of surviving of the patient in the intensive care unit. The study research questions are addressed as the assumption then tested, verified and validated.

• Does the intensive care unit patient improvement and medical error rate reduction depend on the number of the competent nursing staff (P)?
• Does the increase in the number of professionals and support staff in critical care including health consultants decrease the medical errors (I)?
• Does the workload affects the nurses' quality service delivery and reduces the survival rate of the patient that needs critical care (C)?
• How does increase number of medical staffing (O) improve the quality of the service delivery (T)?

The research questions are relevant to the study goals, objectives and the approaches were appropriate since the survey questions were directed to the nurses and other medical and support staffing working in the intensive care unit. Despite how the surveillance improved the quality of the healthcare outcome and increased the rate of survival of the patient under the intensive care unit, it is also critical to deliberate the nurse staffing roles. Ideally, this could be in the lenses of how it influences the patient survival rate by reducing the medication prescription errors and augmenting quality health care delivery.

The Relationship Between Nursing Staffing and Patients Outcomes in PICOT Statement

The research reviewed the previous studies with the aim of the workload based on both qualitative and quantitative revisions. The researchers underlined one of the leading challenges of identifying the relationship between the medical staffing and the improvement of the quality service outcome is that remarkably few studies have highlighted control of complex variables. The workload is one of such confusing variables; a nurse who is tired or overworked is more likely to face thus leading to medical errors. Nurses experience the challenge of addressing the patient needs and abuse the patient safety anxieties. Nursing ratio influences and their professionalism influences the outcome of the patients' medication and should be reflected in future studies of patient outcome nursing staff ratio.

Most patients under the intensive care units need special treatment, especially from the qualified practitioners. The practitioner's awareness of the new tools and equipment's could influence the outcome of the quality health services delivery. The critical administration of the medication under the close supervision of the nurses or the health practitioner could also boost the patient rate of recovery

PICOT questions further pinpoint the reasons for recognizing the critical factors that influence the quality health services delivery to patients under the intensive care units. Based on the research, continues suffering is one of the severe conditions of the healthcare facilities. The increase in the incidence of wrong medication prescription is very rampant in most of the health facilities. In the study, the researchers try to highlight the causes of improper medication prescriptions

Another rising question that researcher uncovers is the medical abuses such as under dosages or overdose in most of the health facilities. Patient in intensive care units suffers a lot as a result of under dosages or overdoses causes by either nurse's workload. As a result of the drugs abuses such patient's experiences side effects of the drugs including weakness, low self-esteem and both physical and psychological problems (Sawyer et al., 2015). In most cases, such drugs abuses lead to the increases in the mortality rate.

It also provides the causes of the previous accidents of medication errors experienced by the adults in intensive care units. Evidence-based practice helps in the provision of evidence regarding past accident and supports the hospital stakeholders in the formulation of policies that reduce medication errors.

Evidence-Based Practice Changes

Evidence-based practices can be instrumental in dealing with the current challenge in the clinical setting. Use of the modern technologies in the healthcare setting can be instrumental into finding the right and reliable solution to the issue. In actual sense, the application of technology and the change of the social culture can help to solve the trouble and this aid in combating the major problems that are associated with this malpractice. At the end of it all, it will be much possible to improve the clinical practices by applying the evidence-based practice approaches. Multimodal approach is also another viable option and has been in practice for quite some time. Evidence-Based approaches compared to the tradition health care practices are seen as improved health standard, a decrease of mobility cases and an increase of the patient security and outcome. The PICOT question, applicable to subject the due to the facts that when clinics know how to appraise and apply the best Evidence-based approaches critically, the patient will become confident of their healthcare provided under the evidence-based practices.

The Evidence-based practice designs therefore mean the conscientious, explicit, and judicious application of the current based evidence in making patient care decision. If all the professional healthcare providers make the use of such approaches, this will help to reduce deaths that are as a result of the wrong application of medication. Doctors will have to be strict an cautious when working in their respective settings.

References

Kon, A. A., Davidson, J. E., Morrison, W., Danis, M., & White, D. B. (2016). Shared decision making in intensive care units: an American College of Critical Care Medicine and American Thoracic Society policy statement. Critical Care Medicine, 44(1), 188.

West, E., Barron, D.N., Harrison, D., Raffety, A. M., Rowan, K. &Sandarson, C. (2014). Nurse Staffing, Medical Staffing and mortality in Intensive Care: an Observational study. International Journal of nursing studies. 50(5), 789-794.