The Ethics and Legalities of Medication Error Disclosure - Research Paper

Introduction

Human beings are prone to errors and this is no different when it happens in the sensitive health care industry where human error can be costly where the lives of patients are concerned. Once an advanced practice nurse makes an error while prescribing a drug to a patient, whether intentional or not, there are bound to be both ethical and legal complications. It is never easy to admit when one is wrong but since the nursing profession deals with human lives, the ethically right course of action for the nurse in the community clinic is to disclose the mistake to the concerned patient (Monrouxe & Rees, 2017). Doing this, together with a sincere apology, will help both the nurse and the patient to find a way of mitigating the effects of the prescription error. From a legal perspective, the error by the nurse exposes them to criminal allegations, civil suits, and disciplinary actions by the medical board. The applicable laws and regulations for such medical errors vary from state to state. The nursing practicing license in Texas is likely have reduced privileges where the nurse cannot practice in one or more forms of nursing services. Their scope of practicing is limited through the downgraded license.

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As the advanced practice nurse in this scenario, it would occur to me that I am the person responsible for reporting all medical errors that take place under my watch. As such, it does not matter that the error came from myself as a person because I would go ahead and report it (Tingle & Cribb, 2014). The contemporary nurse faces a myriad of challenges that include attending to numerous patients within a short time frame. This means that there is even lesser time to attend to each individual patient, thus the need to lay down effective protocol applicable whenever there are such errors. The ideal procedure in case of an error would be to acknowledge the error to the relevant authorities and the patient involved, ensure the medical safety of the patient, and attempt to rectify the error that occurred. Acknowledging the error creates trust with the public that will have confidence when dealing with the community health clinic in the future. The last part of the protocol would be the implementation of extra measures that will ensure the error does not recur in the future.

There are essential steps that ought to be followed whenever a nurse is in the process of writing prescriptions. Adhering to these steps is an ideal strategy towards mitigating the occurrence of human errors in the medication process. The advance practice nurse should ascertain that the medication to be prescribed is absolutely necessary in treating the patient's condition (Pozgar, 2016). The drugs prescribed should be the best medication possible out of all the available alternatives. There should be no contraindications to this drug with the patient for whom it is being prescribed. The drugs prescribed should be in the right dosage without exceeding or understating but just enough to treat the patient's problem. The nurse should make sure that the patient does not have cases of sensitivity or any allergy to the drug that they are prescribing to them. It is also important to crosscheck whether the patient is currently using any other drug and whether the drug in use will or will not agree with the drug being prescribed. Besides considering the duration of the assigned dosage, the nurse should also see to it that the mode of administering the drug is the most appropriate.

References

Monrouxe, L. V., & Rees, C. E. (2017). Healthcare professionalism: Improving practice through reflections on workplace dilemmas. Somerset: John Wiley & Sons.

Pozgar, G. D. (2016). Legal and ethical issues for health professionals. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Tingle, J., & Cribb, A. (2014). Nursing law and ethics. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.