Medication Management And Safety Policy: A Review

Review and monitoring of policies

Medicines are indispensible in the process of treatment and cure of any physical complications. Different medicines have different mode of administrations and its associated side-effects. Proper medication management and safety along with the observance of the patient-centred medication management plan is helpful in controlling adverse affect of medication (Wilz et al. 2016). The following report aims to review the polices that are designed for the medication management along with the analysis of impact adverse medication management over the patient’s health. At the report throws a brief light over the personal reflection of the author over the overall concept of the medication management. 

Discussion 

Review and monitoring of policies

The primary purpose of Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) of UK is to provide protection to the service users via setting standards, code of conduct and training for all the registered nurses, midwives and community public health nurses (Nursing and Midwifery Council of UK 2007). NMC considers the administration of medicine as an essential aspect of professional health practice and in order to stringently manage the medication administration to the patients, the council strict sets of standards. The detailed layout medication management standards is elaborated below in tabular format:

Table: Regulation of the Medication Administration

(Source: Nursing and Midwifery Council of UK 2007)

The council also takes into consideration of the cost-effective and safe usage of medicines in order to ensure maximum benefits to the patients while minimising the potential harm. The NMC also puts forward some policies in order to regulate the supply and administration of medicines. The polices mainly covered domains like proper maintenance of the patient medicines and the administration charts; exemption of medicines act; group discussion with patients; special home remedy protocols and designing proper discharge form for patients (Nursing and Midwifery Council of UK 2007).

The National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP) undertakes national audits in order to analyze the rate of medication error and the reason behind the medication errors and this survey help to device plans or strategies in order to avoid medication error. Healthcare organisation also runs their own register and documentation in order record the rate of occurrence and types of medication error and subsequent plan to circumvent the same.

This documentation has shown that the medication error is maximum among the newly recruited nursing professionals. Proper training of the nursing professionals both hands on and training via presentation and documentation will help to reduce the rate of occurrence of medication errors. The senior nursing professionals are best suited one to provide the hands on training (Adhikari et al. 2014).

Standards for medication management

Impact on health and safety

With the increase in the use of medications as key interventions for most of the diseases, the rate of potential harm arising from the side-effects of the medication is also increasing. Apart from the side-effects, the harms are also associated with the lack of observance of proper medication management protocol. Some of the controllable threats to medication management that adversely affects the patients include wrong dosage, improper administration of medicines, inadequate nursing education, improper timing of medication administration.

Other associated factors behind increase in the medicine administration error include poor nurse: patient ratio, nurse burnout, high workload, staff shortage, flawed drug labelling, illegible handwriting in medicine administration protocol and the use wrong dispensing system (Lewis, Baernholdt and Hamric 2013). Look alike or sound alike medicines or medicines with same action but different composition can result in the generation of adverse patient outcomes (Hall et al. 2016). Ausserhofer et al. (2013) is of the opinion that the verbal prescription through mobile phone may lead to misinterpretation of medicine names and thereby leading to adverse outcomes.

Commonly prescribed medicines like NSAIDs and opiates are mostly allergic to a significant group of patient population and thus are prone in eliciting adverse hypersensitivity reaction (Ayuso et al. 2013). Another common reaction which arise due to adverse medication management include “adverse drug events” which commonly occurs when improper medicines is used. Complementary medicines at times are found to react with the prescribed medications when taken simultaneously and thus increase the overall risk of the medication side-effects (Scott and Thompson 2014). Thus a healthcare professional, both a doctor and a nurse are required to taken into account all the consideration s before prescribing and administering a medicine to a patient and hence Elwyn et al. (2014) is in favour of patient centred medication management.

The National Health Service UK (NHS) also takes into account the observance of cultural safety and sensitivity while administering medicines. In order to stringently maintain the cultural competitiveness, the health care professionals must taken into account of behavioural patterns, spiritual values and perceptions of people who belong from a different communities like in case of aboriginals (McLeod et al. 2014).

NHS UK considers proper observance of hand hygiene as an effective procedure for the prevention of communicable infection during medicine administration. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has separate hand hygiene guidelines which the healthcare professionals needs to abide by. This proper observance of the hand hygiene during and after the medication administration helps to prevents the rate of occurrence of the nosocomial infection like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). The details of the NHS guidelines for the procedure of observance of hand hygiene is illustrated below

National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP)

Personal reflection

As per my opinion, patient safety is premium in the domain of health and social care and a registered healthcare professional is required to undertake all the required measures in order to ensure optimal patient safety along with fast recovery. My role as a nursing professional mainly encompass proper knowledge and awareness about the medication management protocol as issues by NMC along with proficiency of skills to deliver care in a safe and competent manner.

Since the nursing professionals spent more time with patients, I think it is our onus to interact with patients, understand their problem, thought process and beliefs and understanding and then take step in farming of the care plan accordingly. In doing this one become aware of the allergies that the patient nurture from certain group of drugs and at the same time may devise the medication administration plan in a culturally sensitive manner. This effective interaction and compliance of the safety procedure will help to side-pass adverse health outcome arising from the use or application of medicines.

However, I think the novice nursing professionals are at times make mistakes while handling medicines. The reason behind this is lack of proper exposure and lack of effective hands-on training. I think it is the duty of the senior nursing professionals to assist the new jonnie and this will help them to accustom with the overall procedure of medication management and thereby gaining proficiency. 

In my personal practise, I try to abide by the concept of the patient centred care plan while providing medication and this helps me to deliver care in a culturally competent manner. I also make sure to reduce the overall waiting time and try to reduce the spread of the infection via observance of proper hand hygiene.

Conclusion

Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that the proper use of the medicines and its proper administration in imperative in the domain of patient care. Apart from the observance of the proper hand hygiene and documentation of the medication administration error, it is also the role of the nursing professionals to deliver the process of care in a culturally competent manner and at the same time to assist the new joiners’ in the process of training.

References

Adhikari, R., Tocher, J., Smith, P., Corcoran, J. and MacArthur, J., 2014. A multi-disciplinary approach to medication safety and the implication for nursing education and practice. Nurse education today, 34(2), pp.185-190.

Ausserhofer, D., Schubert, M., Desmedt, M., Blegen, M.A., De Geest, S. and Schwendimann, R., 2013. The association of patient safety climate and nurse-related organizational factors with selected patient outcomes: a cross-sectional survey. International journal of nursing studies, 50(2), pp.240-252.

Ayuso, P., Blanca?López, N., Doña, I., Torres, M.J., Guéant?Rodríguez, R.M., Canto, G., Sanak, M., Mayorga, C., Guéant, J.L., Blanca, M. and Cornejo?García, J.A., 2013. Advanced phenotyping in hypersensitivity drug reactions to NSAID s. Clinical & Experimental Allergy, 43(10), pp.1097-1109.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014. Active bacterial core surveillance report, emerging infections program network, methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, 2014.

Elwyn, G., Dehlendorf, C., Epstein, R.M., Marrin, K., White, J. and Frosch, D.L., 2014. Shared decision making and motivational interviewing: achieving patient-centered care across the spectrum of health care problems. The Annals of Family Medicine, 12(3), pp.270-275.

Hall, L.H., Johnson, J., Watt, I., Tsipa, A. and O’Connor, D.B., 2016. Healthcare staff wellbeing, burnout, and patient safety: a systematic review. PloS one, 11(7), p.e0159015.

Lewis, E.J., Baernholdt, M. and Hamric, A.B., 2013. Nurses’ experience of medical errors: An integrative literature review. Journal of nursing care quality, 28(2), pp.153-161.

McLeod, M., Ahmed, Z., Barber, N. and Franklin, B.D., 2014. A national survey of inpatient medication systems in English NHS hospitals. BMC health services research, 14(1), p.93.

National Health Service. 2016. Wash Your Hands. Access date: 10^th July 2018. 

Nursing and Midwifery Counsil. 2007. Standards for Medicines Management. Access date: 10.07.2018.

Scott, S. and Thompson, J., 2014. Adverse drug reactions. Anaesthesia & Intensive Care Medicine, 15(5), pp.245-249.

Wilz Sr, D., Walczyk, J.A. and Meagher, M., Hand Held Products Inc, 2016. Medication management system. U.S. Patent Application 14/695,364.

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