Medication Administration Sample Essay.
Category: Others
Description
In need of a sample draft
Consider a previous experience or hypothetical situation pertaining to medication errors, and consider how the error could have been prevented or alleviated with the use of evidence-based guidelines.
Choose a specific condition of interest surrounding a medication administration safety risk and incorporate evidence-based strategies to support communication and ensure safe and effective care.
For this assessment:
- Analyze a current issue or experience in clinical practice surrounding a medication administration safety risk and identify a quality improvement (QI) initiative in the health care setting.
INSTRUCTIONS
The purpose of this assessment is to better understand the role of the baccalaureate-prepared nurse in enhancing quality improvement (QI) measures that address a medication administration safety risk. This will be within the specific context of patient safety risks at a health care setting of your choice. You will do this by exploring the professional guidelines and best practices for improving and maintaining patient safety in health care settings from organizations such as QSEN and the IOM. Looking through the lens of these professional best practices to examine the current policies and procedures currently in place at your chosen organization and the impact on safety measures for patients surrounding medication administration, you will consider the role of the nurse in driving quality and safety improvements. You will identify stakeholders in QI improvement and safety measures as well as consider evidence-based strategies to enhance quality of care and promote medication administration safety in the context of your chosen health care setting.
Be sure that your plan addresses the following, which corresponds to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Please study the scoring guide carefully so that you know what is needed for a distinguished score.
- Explain factors leading to a specific patient-safety risk focusing on medication administration.
- Explain evidence-based and best-practice solutions to improve patient safety focusing on medication administration and reducing costs.
- Explain how nurses can help coordinate care to increase patient safety with medication administration and reduce costs.
- Identify stakeholders with whom nurses would coordinate to drive safety enhancements with medication administration.
- Communicate using writing that is clear, logical, and professional, with correct grammar and spelling, using current APA style.
- DEMONSTRATION OF PROFICIENCY
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:
- Competency 1: Analyze the elements of a successful quality improvement initiative.
- Explain evidence-based and best-practice solutions to improve patient safety focusing on medication administration and reducing costs.
- Competency 2: Analyze factors that lead to patient safety risks.
- Explain factors leading to a specific patient-safety risk focusing on medication administration.
- Competency 4: Explain the nurse’s role in coordinating care to enhance quality and reduce costs.
- Explain how nurses can help coordinate care to increase patient safety with medication administration and reduce costs.
- Identify stakeholders with whom nurses would need to coordinate to drive quality and safety enhancements with medication administration.
- Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly, evidence-based strategies to communicate in a manner that supports safe and effective patient care.
- Organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth transitions; contains few errors in grammar or punctuation, word choice, and spelling.
- Apply APA formatting to in-text citations and references exhibiting nearly flawless adherence to APA format.
References
- Length of submission: 3–5 pages, plus title and reference pages.
- Number of references: Cite a minimum of 4 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your findings
Requirements: 3 pages
Wrong Route on Medication Administration
Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Institution
Course
Date
Factors Leading To A Specific Patient-Safety Risk On Medication Administration.
Once a patient arrives at the healthcare center, they expect professional and specialized care. However, it does not always end up as they expect, especially when there is a medication administration error involved in the process. Medication administration errors can result in death or serious injuries for the patients. There are several reasons why medication administration errors may put the patient at the safe risk of being injured or hurt. The following work will focus on administering the medication through the wrong route.
These mistakes can occur from slips and deficiencies at individual levels and failures at the system level, such as understaffing and difficulties with the people involved. When the nurse on duty confuses the route of medication administration, they put the patient’s safety at risk. Most of the patients are at risk of getting the medication through the wrong routes, hence being injured. Both system-related problems include non-compliance with the institution’s authorized norms and a lack of unit employees. Factors relating to the nursing sector include nursing or distractions during the administration of drugs and unskilled nursing staff. The failure of the institution to adhere to the official policies and regulations through shortcuts, omission of good practices, or skipping leads to pharmaceutical mistakes. A “flawed or non-patient identification method” is the most prevalent cause of the wrong route of medication mistakes. Everywhere, not just at the bedside, a patient verification process is necessary.
Evidence-Based And Best-Practice Solutions To Improve Patient Safety Patient
Identification Protocol
Reducing wrong route medication mistakes is remedial as there are numerous solutions available for improvement. Many nurses do not realize how important it is to follow all the stages throughout the medication process (Gonzalez, 2017). Some nurses tend to assume that patient acquaintance does not mean that the necessity for identification is negated. When the identification protocol is ignored, the nurse may fail to grasp the administration route, putting the patient at risk. However, every time a patient receives medicine identification is made, errors will reduce substantially.
Standardized Communication
Communication guidelines for the health system are employed to guarantee proper treatment (Gonzalez, 2017). A tall-man lettering strategy should be employed to alert readers to the medicine names of “looking similar, sound-alike” in different electronic health records, commercial labeling, and drugs administration process information resources (Chan & et al., 2018). The Joint Commission further recommends standard acronyms and numerical standards. The list of ‘don’t use’ contains general criteria for numeric dosage expression and clear indication on the route of administration.
How Nurses Can Help Coordinate Care To Increase Patient Safety
Education for Patients
Patients need to know the route or medication administration this way, and they can raise questions when otherwise process or route is used. Patient Education is vital to employ clear communication techniques to reduce the risk of mistakes at home and frequently give patients education, particularly if the drug administration route or the regimens are adjusted. A related introductory article on health education highlights various problems patients and family members have to understand their drug schedules and strategies to improve communication and comprehension (Meyer-Massetti, &et al., 2018). Patient education, particularly with high-risk medicines, such as anticoagulant treatment, is the key element in improving the safety of medication administration. Patients are frequently trained to understand their treatment indication, anticipated results, and indications and symptoms of adverse events. Warfarin tablet colors are standardized across all manufacturers to assist in alleviating misdose. Patients are typically recommended when they receive a new prescription refill to double-check their pill color. The colour of the pill shouldn’t change if the prescription doesn’t alter.
Administration of Barcode Drugs
Nurses can also suggest the introduction of Barcode drugs as means of ensuring patient safety. If properly utilized, barcode medication administration (BCMA) technology eliminates mistakes in the health system by the mechanical linkage of the correct dose of the right drug to the right patient through the right route, by using barcode labeling of patients, medications, and medical data and information on its usage ( Strudwick, &et al.,2018).
Smart Infusion Pumps
Nurses should recommend introducing smart infusion pumps if there are none within their work facilities since they are more accurate and do not have issues with the wrong route of medication administration. Dose Error Reduction Software (DERSs) has considerably risen by smart infusion pumps or infusion pumps in recent years. 88% of hospitals used smart infusion pumps (Hoffman & Bacon, 2020). Even if smart pumps offer many safety benefits, they also tend to be difficult to deploy and deal with human variables, including complex user interfaces and complicated programming requirements, resulting in severe mistakes.
Stakeholders With Whom Nurses Would Coordinate
Health care management- the nurses, need to inform the management before going ahead with any initiatives regarding quality improvement. To ensure order and proper facilitation, the nurse needs managerial support in resource allocation and proper organization of the initiatives.
Patients also play a great role in ensuring no medication administration mistakes by paying attention to the guidelines and following through with them even after they are out of the healthcare center.
IT professionals – in implementing the Barcodes medication system, the nurses will need the information technology specialists to set up the system and train them to use it efficiently. Besides, if the nurses implement the smart infusion pumps, they will also need to rely on the IT professions to set the system and train them to use them.
References
Chan, A. S., Muller, R. J., & Mancuso, C. E. (2018). Description of a tall-man lettering program for look-alike and sound-alike antineoplastic agents. The Bulletin of the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists, 75(8), 512-513.
Gonzalez, H. C. (2017). Explanatory Sequential Examination of Senior Baccalaureate Nursing Students’ Critical Thinking after Participating in a Skills Fair (Doctoral dissertation, Valdosta State University).
Hoffman, L., & Bacon, O. (2020). Infusion Pumps. Making Healthcare Safer III: A Critical Analysis of Existing and Emerging Patient Safety Practices [Internet]. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US).
Meyer-Massetti, C., Hofstetter, V., Hedinger-Grogg, B., Meier, C. R., & Guglielmo, B. J. (2018). Medication-related problems during the transfer from hospital to home care: baseline data from Switzerland. International journal of clinical pharmacy, 40(6), 1614-1620.
Strudwick, G., Reisdorfer, E., Warnock, C., Kalia, K., Sulkers, H., Clark, C., & Booth, R. (2018). Factors associated with barcode medication administration technology that contribute to patient safety: an integrative review. Journal of nursing care quality, 33(1), 79-85.