Factors that cause medication errors and their impacts on the patient safety
Medication errors are any situation which can be preventable, and they may lead to inappropriate medication harm to the patient. Medication errors are related to medical practices, professional activities, procedures and healthcare products. Medication error is termed as a failure in medication process which can cause harm to the patient health which means that the process did not meet its objective to offer satisfactory services to the patient and instead it may worsen their health condition (Carayon et al., 2014, p.14). The significant role of the nursing professionals is to ensure that they provide quality services and medication to the patients and similarly, patients expect quality care from the caregivers. When a medication error occurs, the situation is complicated. Studies conducted indicate that difficulties associated with drugs contribute mainly to medication errors. Therefore, nursing professionals should be very keen when giving drug prescriptions to the patients to avoid this conditions. According to Bogner (2018), healthcare professionals can make medication errors in decision making by providing the wrong medication to a patient. Therefore, it is advisable that nursing professional should work together so that they can make the right decision regarding a patient’s health condition and come up with the perfect medication. This paper focuses on factors that contribute to medication errors and their effects on patient safety, and the strategies which registered nurses can use to prevent medication errors.
Factor 1: Distractions and Interruptions
A nurse or healthcare professional may end up creating a medication error in case he or she is distracted as they perform their operation. This is because medication process is a very critical process and that it requires a lot of attention to be able to deliver quality services (Nanji, Patel, Shaikh, Seger & Bates, 2016, p.25). This distractions and interruptions are caused by cases like the nurse’s phone ringing in the cause of their operation which disrupts their concentration or been interrupted by another healthcare professional asking a question. Despite the growing knowledge of the nature and effects of interruptions and distractions, there is still limited evidence on means which can be used to eliminate them, and therefore they keep on occurring in hospitals.
Factor 2: Poor Working Environments
In cases where a hospital has a few numbers of healthcare professionals, the available staff is overworked, and this has profoundly contributed to medication errors. This is because nurses and other healthcare professionals get tired and exhausted from attending other patients. Due to exhaustion nurses and healthcare professionals pay less attention to what they are doing and this has dramatically led to medication errors. If the hospital in which the nurses are working on is located in local areas may lack the necessary facilities which are required in healthcare sectors (Fox & McLaughlin, 2018). For example, if the hospital has some electricity problem, it may lead to some medication errors because nurses and other healthcare professionals may get the wrong laboratory results regarding a patient’s health which can lead to them administering the wrong medication to the patient and this can negatively affect their health condition (Westbrook et al., 2015, p9. Change of environments like a nurse or any other healthcare professional been shifted from one hospital to another may affect their performance and be able to offer quality services to patients (Kruer, Jarrell & Latif, 2014, p.117). This is because they spend some time to get used to the new environment and assigning them duties immediately before they are used can lead to medication errors, and this can affect the health condition of a patient significantly.
Strategy 1: Use of Medication Error Analysis
Factor 3: The last factor is the Lack of Knowledge and Expertise
This is highly experienced in countries which are still developing because they don’t have enough number of healthcare professionals in their health care institutions, so they end up employing novices who do not have enough knowledge about what they are supposed to do. This has contributed significantly to medication errors because they do not have enough experience and expertise on various kinds of infections which means they don’t know the type of medication they should give patients (Lan et al., 2014, p.821). This countries also lack the best facilities for training their healthcare professionals which means by the time they complete their training and learning they will not have gained enough knowledge about their field of specialization. When they get employed in healthcare institutions, they end up making a lot of errors which endangers the patient’s safety and exposes them to risks of worsening their health condition.
Strategy 1: Use of Medication Error Analysis
Medication error reporting is an essential aspect of eradicating medication errors and the development of medication error prevention strategies in the hospital which is used by nurses (Nanji et al., 2016, p.25). Despite the harmful effects that medication errors can cause to patients nurses should take them as learning exercises which they can use to improve the quality of healthcare and limit their occurrences. Reporting medication errors to allow development of countermeasures which can help mitigate them in the future. Unreported medication errors can continue occurring, so nurses are advised to report them as soon as they happen (Runciman, Merry & Walton, 2017).
Strategy 2: Using Computerized Provider Order Entry System
The second strategy which registered nurses can use is through using computerized provider order entry system which is used to eliminate medication errors which are caused by mistakes made from handwritten or verbal orders which are given to the patient. To eradicate this, nurses are currently using electronic health records which are used to keep patient data safely and only authorized personnel can access it. This has led to more accurate and precise information about a patient, and thus they can offer the best medication to a patient with no errors. Use of Apple health record technology can also allow them to access patient information anytime and anywhere which saves them time and therefore they can spend more time paying attention to a patient (Parry, Barriball & While, 2015, p.403).
Strategy 2: Using Computerized Provider Order Entry System
Strategy 3: Use of Bar-coding Systems
Use of bar-coding systems includes placing a unique identifier on each patient and the medication. This allows for the patient information and medicine to be scanned automatically to ensure that the right medication is administered to the right patient. This has dramatically helped prevent medication errors.
Conclusion
Medication errors can have adverse effects on a patient, and therefore they should be avoided. Nurses should ensure that they place the best strategies which can be used to eliminate medication errors. Healthcare professional leaders should ensure that they employ enough number of caregivers in their hospitals, so they don’t overwork them as exhaustion has contributed to medication errors. To address the issue of lack of knowledge and expertise resulting in medical errors I will ensure that my class acquired knowledge is applied. I will remain an active team worker to ensure that I get adequate knowledge of the services and medications which I should direct to specific patient. In my next clinical placement, I will ensure that I remain keen and attentive as I attend patients. I will keep my phone in silent mode while attending patients and advice the patients to keep theirs in silent mode as well. The practice of the strategies will significantly enable me to avoid making medical errors during my clinical placement.
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Nanji, K.C., Patel, A., Shaikh, S., Seger, D.L. and Bates, D.W., 2016. Evaluation of perioperative medication errors and adverse drug events. Anesthesiology: The Journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, 124(1), pp.25-34.
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Runciman, B., Merry, A. and Walton, M., 2017. Safety and ethics in healthcare: a guide to getting it right. CRC Press.
Westbrook, J.I., Li, L., Lehnbom, E.C., Baysari, M.T., Braithwaite, J., Burke, R., Conn, C. and Day, R.O., 2015. What are incident reports telling us? A comparative study at two Australian hospitals of medication errors identified at audit, detected by staff and reported to an incident system. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 27(1), pp.1-9.
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