Paper Topic

[nursinggirl11]

Hi!

My topic for my essay is a safety topic. I chose to do it on the medication errors and reducing them.

I am looking for some ideas on what to right.

My first paragraph is my intro, than the 5 rights, than implementing EMAR anyone else have any great ideas on what to write on reducing med errors?

Thanks so much everyone!

[msygrnbw]

Think about all of the ways medication errors can happen - Each medication right is there because it's a place an error could happen. Even when scanning medications errors still happen. Things off the top of my head that I see very day that are risks.

- Family members/other staff talking to nurses/asking questions/portable phone ringing while they are administering/pulling meds out of the machine

- Appropriate lab value examination before administering meds - i.e. K+ level before administering k-dur

- Programming a pump - having a double check with another nurse, or asking for help if you aren't certain

- Medication drawers accidentally being stocked wrong by pharmacy

- Being in a hurry and not taking the time to explain each med to the patient - sometimes they will say "Oh! I stopped taking that a long time ago!"

All of these (and many others that I haven't listed) contribute to medication errors despite emars and scanning. How can these errors be reduced? I'll give you one example - Stopping interruptions during medication administration (signs on portable computers, red flashing light that signals med pass/pull in progress). What other things can you think of? I can think of some for each and I think that'd give you more than plenty to write on.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Don't forget over-reliance on technology. I've seen it lead to medication errors, primarily with preoperative antibiotics. The system we use arbitrarily assigns an administration time based on when the order was placed, regardless of when the patient is scheduled for surgery. Despite the big bold note stating "to be given in preop area or OR", it's frequently happened that the med was given several hours to almost a day early because it showed up as being due and the nurse relied too much on what medications the computer was saying to give.

[NICU Guy, BSN, RN]

- Medication drawers accidentally being stocked wrong by pharmacy

Newborn infants given adult strength Heparin because pharmacy stocked the wrong dosage in the Pyxis in both Indiana and California about 7 yrs ago.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

6th right: right reason. Is this medication really the best choice?

I also recommend you review the Joint Commission website for sentinel events related to med errors, and the ISMP website for newsletters and data

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

and the AHRQ Patients and Consumers | Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ)

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

If you google "medication error prevention" it returns approximately one bazillion hits.

[nursinggirl11]

Thanks everyone. Great ideas. I really appreciate it! :)