Medication Errors in Nursing 1

Medication Errors in Nursing

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Medication Errors in Nursing 2 Medication Error Causes Medication errors in nursing homes can lead to very serious injuries. Often, the cause of the error is unclear and the fault can be shared between several people, such as various nurses and doctors. It is imperative that you contact an experienced personal injury attorney early so that an investigation can be launched into the cause of the medication error. The numbers are simply staggering: Every

year 1.5 million people are sickened or severely injured by medication mistakes, and 100,000 die. The cause of an error lies mainly within wrong dosages, or giving medicine at the wrong moment. An unacceptably high workload, disorder or inattention is besides a wrong (handwritten) prescription also often a reason for errors. Remarkable are that many nurses indicate that the medication errors mainly arise because of inexperienced personnel, like physicians who are still learning a specialism and temporary employees. Doctor and nursing negligence is the cause of many medication errors, and by pursuing claims of malpractice against those responsible, patient safeties may be improved in the future while providing for the needs of those who have already been injured. Common medication errors include: Prescription errors, Dosage errors, adverse reactions and side effects, Dispensing errors, Labeling

Medication Errors in Nursing 3 errors, Wrong medications, Drug interactions, automated dispensing system errors. Medication errors can result in very serious consequences and adverse reactions that can lead to long term and fatal injuries. Obtaining compensation is not only important to pay for medical treatment, lost wages and other expenses, but also to provide a sense of justice and closure for victims and their families. Reasons for Medication errors in Nursing Slip Error The most common cause of medication error in acute care is a slip error (doing the wrong thing) or a lapse error (not doing something). Slips by doctors often occur while rewriting drug charts and slips by nurses usually happen when they are checking the name and dose of a drug prior to administration. Failure to read or misreading of charts is the most common causal factor contributing to incidents. studies confirm that most errors are due to slips in attention that occur during routine prescribing, dispensing and administering, with errors being significantly more frequent out of hours when busy, distracted staff are often dealing with unfamiliar patients.

Poor Communication

Medication Errors in Nursing 4 Consumers report poor communication, lack of information and lack of co-ordination of care as common reasons for problems arising from medicine use. Doctors, too, have reported that the most common reasons for error are associated with poor communication and co-ordination of care. They highlighted that poor communication between themselves and patients, poor communication with other health professionals and patients seeing other practitioners all contributed to error. Medication errors occur as often as once per patient per day in some settings, and approximately one-third of harmful medication errors are thought to occur during medication administration. Nurses Role in Medication Safety The Nurses Role in Medication Safety focuses on the hands-on role nurses play in the delivery of care and their unique opportunity and responsibility to identify potential medication safety issues. It provides nurses with practical strategies and real-life examples to improve medication safety in their health care organizations. Traditional roles of nursing include surveillance, for example, watching patients for changes in their condition and protecting them from harm/errors. Even as students, nurses are taught that it is their duty and obligation to question

Medication Errors in Nursing 5 doctors orders and to refuse to administer medications or carry out procedures that they feel are inappropriate. Despite their important role in maintaining safety, most studies of patient safety have focused exclusively on the role of registered nurses in administering medications, and not on their role in error prevention, discovery or correction. It is important for nurses to understand the factors contributing to errors for effective prevention. Point Of care Improving safety at the point of care is the most important aspect of error prevention. The medication errors that cause harm include errors related to infusion of highrisk medications and an intravenous medication safety system has been designed recently to prevent high-risk infusion medication errors and to capture continuous quality improvement data for best practice improvement. The new safety system has been shown successful in averting 99 potential infusion errors in 8 months (Hatcher et.al, 2004). Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) is a recent technique to prevent chemotherapy errors. It is a proactive process in which nurses play a vital role and is based on systematic thinking about the safety of patient care.

References

Medication Errors in Nursing 6 Coombes I, Heel A, Stowasser DA, Reid CM. (2005) Identification of medication errors by nurses-during a simulated ward, medication safety orientation program. Journal of Pharmacy Practice and Research; 35:190195. Kaushal, R., Bates, D. W., Landrigan, C., McKenna, K. J., Clapp, M. D., Federico, F., et al. (2001) Medication errors and adverse drug events in pediatric inpatients. Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, 21142120. Johanna I. Westbrook; Amanda Woods; Marilyn I. Rob; William T. M. Dunsmuir; Richard O. Day.(2010) Association of Interruptions With an Increased Risk and Severity of Medication Administration Errors. Arch Intern Med; 170 (8): 683-690