Nurses and other healthcare providers are responsible and committed to ensuring patient safety through error-free care administration. Healthcare organizations and practitioners are committed to ensuring patient safety at all times. However, the complexity of the healthcare system makes it hard to ascertain safety throughout all processes. These occurrences are inevitable despite the strict emphasis on safety nets to lower healthcare errors, risks, or eventualities. Some of the most common errors in hospital settings are medication errors. Abu Farha et al. (2021) state that medical errors harm an estimated one million Americans annually. Therefore, healthcare professionals are dedicated to ensuring patient safety drives every decision and action.
Healthcare practitioners take oaths to prioritize patient safety in every decision, action, and practice, especially when handling, administering, or prescribing medications. Thus, they are committed to reducing the number of medication errors made during medical treatment procedures. Medication error risks are probable whenever a patient is prescribed any form of medication. Medical administration errors (MAEs) can happen at any point during treatment. In the United States, MAEs are feared to cause an estimated 7 out of 1000 outpatient deaths and at least one in every thousand inpatient deaths (Cerveny et al., 2023).
On this note, medication errors have raised concerns for all healthcare stakeholders causing the industry to implement policies and procedures to prevent and reduce occurrences of medical errors. These policies are geared towards QI and the maintenance of patient safety. Although medication error is still a severe healthcare concern due to the ease of access to different forms of medications and drugs interactions, health providers need to commit to ensuring medication errors are at the minimum y using the correct dosage, appropriate route for drug administration, proper timing, and correct documentation (Postnikova et al., 2020). Therefore, nurses are on the frontline to ensure patient safety from potential medication errors at all times. They are the last safeguard in medication administration protocol to improve patient safety and treatment costs.
Factors Leading to Patient Risks Due to Medical Errors
Empirical evidence shows that any patient under care is susceptible to medical administration errors. The three key factors that can lead to medication errors include needing to understand the instructions, completing the order too quickly, and not collaborating with other medical personnel. The wrong drug or dosage may be administered when a nurse disregards her inability to understand the instructions and gives the prescribed dose. If a patient receives an excessive dosage of one medication, serious side effects could result. For example, sliding-scale insulin, depending on the patient’s blood sugar level, contains parameters that specify how much to administer. If you do not comprehend the questions’ parameters, you may learn why a drug is prescribed for a complaint, which will help you learn more about nursing. For instance, if my doctor orders a single dose without prescribing any diuretics and my patient has bilateral crackles in both lobe domains, I will question the decision. The crackles, which might suggest a fluid excess, could not have been seen by the doctor. Depending on the rationale for the bolus, it will probably be kept after I inform the doctor of my results to avoid giving the patient even more fluids. The assignment of fewer patients enables the nurse to concentrate on a smaller ratio. Anyone involved in the healthcare industry today knows the importance of personnel. The most straightforward and apparent line of action is to review the orders that have been placed carefully. One of the most critical steps in reducing prescription error rates is to take your time and avoid rushing through the job. The ability to properly read instructions while seated would reduce the chance of pharmaceutical mishaps. If it could sit down and carefully read orders, prescription mistakes would be less common.
Nurse’s Role in Coordinating Care to Increase Patient Safety with Medication Administration and Reduce Costs
Nurses assist in coordinating care to improve patient safety with drug administration in various ways. Education of the patient is one of the most effective methods. Nurses educate patients on recently prescribed medications before their hospital release (Boonen et al., 2020). By offering reading material or visual aids and enabling the patient to ask questions, the nurse helps the patient better comprehend how to give the drug. Patients will become more confident and effective in achieving their healthcare objectives when they are involved in and informed about their treatment. As a result, improving patient safety and raising the standard of care will be possible over time by decreasing readmissions to the hospital and lowering expenses for both patients and healthcare institutions.
Stakeholder’s Collaboration to Drive Quality and Safety
Any person or party interested in the funding, implementation, or result of a service, practice, process, or decision made by another healthcare provider or health policy is referred to as a healthcare stakeholder (Panickar & Kamarulzaman, 2022). According to Garfield et al. (2020), healthcare stakeholders play a critical role in enhancing the quality and safety of treatment provided to society and ensuring that patients are not injured without the patient’s best interests in mind. Nurses would work together to help these healthcare stakeholders improve the quality or increase the safety of drug delivery. They are crucial to the implementation of advances in patient safety because they provide the tools, knowledge, and data needed.
The efforts to provide top-notch patient care need collaboration between various disciplines and healthcare professionals, and successful collaboration depends on good communication. One of the most challenging things is questioning doctors when they provide an incorrect order. Open communication can help to prevent pharmaceutical errors. Doctors are knowledgeable in their discernment of the proper medication and treatment procedures for each patient, yet they are still fallible like everyone else. Nurses must thus contact them if a directive looks odd (Panickar & Kamarulzaman, 2022). Again, one more approach to demonstrate collaboration is to call the pharmacist if you have questions regarding medication. A pharmacist may go through how to administer medications properly, the warning signs, and the symptoms of side effects.
Conclusion
The healthcare sector continuously updates its rules and processes to minimize pharmaceutical mistakes. The quality of the patient’s treatment and safety are crucial factors in pharmaceutical administration. When care is tailored to patient’s individual needs, the quality of treatment is improved by meeting their unique needs and requirements. To accomplish patient-centered quality and safety, nurses are crucial in coordinating treatment and speaking out for patients before stakeholders.
References
Abu Farha, R., Yousef, A., Gharaibeh, L., Alkhalaileh, W., Mukattash, T., & Alefishat, E. (2021). Medication discrepancies among hospitalized patients with hypertension: Assessment of prevalence and risk factors. BMC Health Services Research, 21(1), 1338-1338. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-07349-5
Boonen, M., Rankin, J., Vosman, F., & Niemeijer, A. (2020). Nurses’ knowledge and deliberations crucial to barcoded medication administration technology in a Dutch hospital: Discovering nurses’ agency inside ruling. Health (London, England: 1997), 24(3), 279-298. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363459318800155.
Cerveny, M., Hajduchova, H., Brabcova, I., Chloubova, I., Prokesova, R., Maly, J., Mala-Ladova, K., Dosedel, M., Tesar, O., Vlcek, J., & Tothova, V. (2023). Self-reported medication administration errors in nurses’ clinical practice: A descriptive correlation study. Medycyna Pracy, 74(2), 85-92. https://doi.org/10.13075/mp.5893.01356.
Garfield, S., Furniss, D., Husson, F., Etkind, M., Williams, M., Norton, J., Ogunleye, D., Jubraj, B., Lakhdari, H., & Franklin, B. D. (2020). How can patient-held lists of medication enhance patient safety? A mixed-methods study with a focus on user experience. BMJ Quality & Safety, 29(9), 764-773. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2019-010194.
Panickar, R., Aziz, Z., & Kamarulzaman, A. (2022). Enhancing medication risk communication in developing countries: A cross-sectional survey among doctors and pharmacists in Malaysia. BMC Public Health, 22(1), 1-1293. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13703-x.
Postnikova, L. B., Klimkin, P. F., Boldina, M. V., Gudim, A. L., & Kubysheva, N. I. (2020). Fatal severe community-acquired pneumonia: Risk factors, clinical characteristics and medical errors of hospital patients. Terapevtic̆eskii Arhiv, 92(3), 42-49. https://doi.org/10.26442/00403660.2020.03.000538.
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