Medication Errors: Patient Safety Issue - Research Paper Sample

Introduction

Medication errors are part of the health care issues that health organizations experience every day. Medication errors have adverse effects on patient’s health and can lead to death. Several events can lead to medication errors. They include wrong prescriptions, poor labeling, ineffective communication about medications, which can result in patient misuse, lack of coordination among health care practitioners, and wrong administration of drugs. As a serious international patient safety issue, medication errors and incidences are significantly caused by the medication administration process interruptions. Interruptions have been cited to be unavoidable and; therefore, it is important to learn and understand how to manage interruptions in the medication administration process. As a health care provider, my role is to ensure the patient’s safety and provide high-quality health care services. Although I have not directly experienced an incident of medication errors, I have heard of several cases of such errors in my organization.

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A good example is when a duty nurse administered a wrong dose to a patient leading to health complications. The patient's family sued the nurse for the incident. This and other incidences of medication errors have contributed to my interest in preventing medication errors whenever I am handling patients.

Credibility

To guarantee the sources' credibility, I selected peer-reviewed articles that were published during the past 5 years. Selecting current sources ensured that they provide the most recent information about medication errors. I also made sure that the sources were published by authors who have experience in healthcare, especially nursing. I determined the relevance of the sources by reading the abstract of each source before selecting them. By reading the abstract, I ascertained that the sources covered issues related to medication errors.

Awareness

This article aimed to improve the awareness of the risk of errors associated with the medication-use system among health professionals. To assess the professionals, the authors created a simulation of 30 medication errors in a 500-bed mother-and-child hospital. Health professions, including nurses, physicians, pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians, were invited to participate in the simulation. Each participant was expected to identify if a situation had an error. The findings indicate that the overall rate of participants' correct answers was 67.5%. Most of the participants intended to change their practices after exposure to the simulation. The authors concluded that the simulation was an effective, relevant, and innovative technique of creating awareness of medication errors among healthcare professionals. This article is relevant because it creates awareness of medication errors among health professionals, making them change their practices to prevent such errors.

Investigation

This article investigates the role of nurses in the identification and reporting of errors. The authors noted that medication safety is a global priority, and identification of medication errors and reporting is important for patient safety. In this investigation, the respondents were expected to identify if errors have been made and how they should report. Based on this investigation, the authors established that nurses can identify medication errors, but are reluctant to report. The main reason for not reporting medication errors is the fear of the consequences. The authors concluded that nursing staff reporting errors should be supported and not punished because the information provided can be used to improve the system. This article was chosen for medication errors because it provides clear and robust reporting mechanisms of medication errors that would improve patient safety.

Interruptions

This article explores the interruptions and distractions during medication administration, particularly with respect to undergraduate nursing education. The authors were concerned that medication administration errors continue to be a major issue in patient safety in health care organizations globally. As a result, they conducted a systematic literature review to understand how undergraduate nurses learn to safely manage interruptions during the medication administration process. The authors established a gap in the existing literature regarding innovative strategies that help undergraduate nurses learn how to safely and manage interruptions in the clinical environment. They concluded that there needs to further examine the strategies that can help nurses manage disruptions and interruptions when administering medications. This article is relevant to medication errors because it prepares nurses to safely conduct medication administration.

Medication Errors

In this article, the authors analyzed reports on medication errors associated with the intravenous (IV) administration route. To accomplish this, the authors organized a voluntary medication error reporting program. The authors were concerned with the relationship between the pattern of error and cultural changes in the health care organization. The authors established that equipment, labeling, type of errors, incorrect route of administration, patient outcomes, and causal agents were mainly reported through their analysis. The authors concluded that there is a need for nursing staff's ongoing education and collaborative strategies to prevent medication errors involving intravenous IV. This article was included because it highlights some of the most common medication errors committed by nursing staff and provides a solution for dealing with such errors.

Conclusion

Through this research, I have learned several things by critically analyzing and synthesizing different sources' contents—one of the lessons us that the research has broadened my knowledge of medication errors. For instance, after reading Hayes et al. (2015) article, I learned that interruptions and disruption of nurses are among the leading causes of medication errors. Besides, medication errors could be reduced through increased confidence when faced with interruptions, which would improve patient safety in healthcare settings.

This research also gave me practical experience in conducting a thorough literature review involving medication errors. The annotated bibliography also enabled me to read and understand sources, which made it easier for me to select relevant sources related to medication errors. This research also provided me with background information and types of scholarly investigations that have been conducted in medication errors.

References

Daupin, J., Atkinson, S., Bédard, P., Pelchat, V., Lebel, D., & Bussières, J. F. (2016). Medication errors room: a simulation to assess the medical, nursing, and pharmacy staffs' ability to identify errors related to the medicationuse system. Journal of evaluation in clinical practice, 22(6), 907-916.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.12558

Dirik, H. F., Samur, M., Seren Intepeler, S., & Hewison, A. (2019). Nurses' identification and reporting of medication errors. Journal of clinical nursing, 28(5-6), 931–938.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.14716

Hayes, C., Jackson, D., Davidson, P. M., & Power, T. (2015). Medication errors in hospitals: a literature review of disruptions to nursing practice during medication administration. Journal of clinical nursing, 24(21-22), 3063–3076. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.12944

Wolf, Z. R. (2016). Medication errors involving the intravenous administration route. Journal of Infusion Nursing, 39(4), 235-248.
https://doi.org/10.1097/nan.0000000000000178.