Agenda and Outcomes
Safe medication administration is a crucial aspect of providing care to patients. An error can adversely impact patients’ health and well-being, with over 1.3 million people in the United States alone suffering from the wrong medication or dosage being administered (Nkurunziza et al., 2018). Therefore, ensuring all staff is trained in safe medication administration is imperative.
The main agenda of the presentation is to learn about the safety procedures that can decrease the number of medication errors associated with incorrect storage of drugs, as well as other factors. Specifically, the double and triple-check procedures, appropriate storage and restocking measures, and medication labeling and monitoring are to be discussed.
Safety Improvement Plan
Medication administration errors may stem from a variety of reasons. Although medical staff workload and consequent inattention can lead to mistakes, systemic medication storage, labeling, and monitoring errors are likely to cause more errors. Therefore, the proposed plan aims to address and mitigate medication administration blunders caused by systemic failures in the health care facility.
It is paramount that healthcare facilities address the systemic failures that lead to medication administration errors rather than focus on those made by individual professionals. Therefore, the safety of healthcare systems should be improved to reduce systemic and individual errors when administering drugs to patients (Rodziewicz et al., 2022).
Staff Role and Importance
Medical staff is critical for the implementation and success of the proposed improvement plan concerning medication administration. It should be emphasized that the health care staff, including doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, handle the drugs and are responsible for their storage, delivery to patients, dosage calculation, and return to the hospital pharmacy.
Medical staff involvement is crucial for the success of the safe medication administration plan. As they discussed, systemic mistakes cover the journey of drugs from storage and restocking to delivery and return of unused units, and a collaboration between nursing and pharmacy leaders should be encouraged (Ho & Burger, 2020). Therefore, healthcare facilities can benefit substantially from embracing the roles of nurses and pharmacists.
New Process and Skills Practice
Triple-check and double sign procedures can reduce errors concerning administering wrong medications to patients (Rodziewicz et al., 2022). Both pharmacists and medical staff retrieving the drugs should confirm the name of the medication and the patient’s name before signing out any medicine. The names should be reviewed again before the administration. High-alert medications should be double-signed to ensure proper delivery.
Pharmacists are expected to implement a new storage system with each medication tube, bag, or packet being labeled. The recommendation is to put different colored labels on similar-looking drugs and store high-alert medications separately. All stored medication is to be regularly checked for expiration date and packaging integrity. Potential concerns: Listeners might worry about the time required for all safety procedures.
Soliciting Feedback
These measures might seem too broad and not specific enough, but they help to decrease medication administration mistakes dramatically. Different errors might be prevalent in different healthcare facilities. Therefore, it is vital to consider the type of mistakes recurring in the facility and what measures are currently in place.
The data on the prevalent medication administration errors allows for developing effective safety procedures. However, staff feedback is critical, as medical professionals deal with medication daily and have unique insight into the root causes of errors. Thus, the feedback on the procedures, as well as any suggestions, are greatly appreciated.
Summary
Medication administration errors are considered preventable but remain highly prevalent. Any difference between the intended and the received drug and the planned and given dosage is deemed an error. The delivery of the wrong drug or the incorrect dose of the prescribed medicine can have a severe impact on the physical health and well-being of patients. Furthermore, it leaves healthcare facilities vulnerable to legal actions and financial expenditures associated with them. Therefore, it is imperative for healthcare organizations to assess themselves for potential recurring errors in medication administration, determine their root causes, and address them timely. In particular, the role of pharmacy and nurse leadership in the storage and delivery of medication should be evaluated. As pharmacists and nurses customary deal with medication, they should be taught new and more effective safety procedures to reduce the number of administration errors. Moreover, they are encouraged to make suggestions and improvements to those measures as they have unique insight.
References
Ho, J., & Burger, D. (2020). Improving medication safety practice at a community hospital: A focus on bar code medication administration scanning and pain reassessment. BMJ Open Quality, 9(3), 1- 7. Web.
Nkurunziza, A., Chironda, G., & Mukeshimana, M. (2018). Perceived contributory factors to medication administration errors (MAEs) and barriers to self-reporting among nurses working in pediatric units of selected referral hospitals in Rwanda. International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, 6(2), 401-407. Web.
Rodziewicz, T. L., Houseman, B., & Hipskind, J. E. (2022). Medical Error Reduction and Prevention. StatPearls. Web.