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Hospital Nursing and Medication Safety

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How to engage hospital nursing staff in the promotion of medication safety

A culture of medication safety has been a priority for many years; there has been less attention to incorporating culture of safety content into the engagement of the nursing staff. The goal of a culture of medication safety is to lessen harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performance (Cronewett et al., 2007), numerous threats to patient safety remain and errors at all interface of care delivery.

There are some common obstacles to safe system include complex and risk-prone systems that produce unintended consequences; lack of comprehensive verbal and written communication system; tolerance to stylistic practices and lack of standardization; fear of punishment which inhibits reporting; and lack of ownership for patient safety. Nursing staff need to be knowledgeable about system vulnerabilities and understand how knowledge, skills and attitude promoting the utilization of safety science will lead to higher quality care for patients and families (Finkelman & Kenner, 2009)

Besides, there are some key elements of a culture of medication safety in an organization include the establishment of safety as an organizational priority, teamwork, patient involvement, openness/transparency, and accountability (Lamb, Studdert, Bohmer, Berwick, & Brennan, 2003).

A safety culture of the medication safety requires strong, committed leadership, along with engagement and empowerment of the nursing staff.

Nowadays, in a culture of medication safety, when an adverse incident occurs, the focus is on what went wrong rather than who caused the problem. Therefore, a balance is achieved between not blaming individuals for errors an...

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....ihi.org/IHI/Topics/Improvement/ImprovementMethods/Literature/100000LivesCampaignSettingGoalandaDeadline.html.
2. Cronenwett, L., Sherwood, G., Barnsteiner, J., Disch J., Janhson, J., Mitchell, P., … Warren, J (2007). Quality and safety education for nurses. Nursing Outlook, 55, 122-131.
3. Finkelman, A., & Kenner, C. (2009). Teaching IOM: Implications of the institute of medicine reports for nursing (2nd Ed.) Silver Springs, MD: Nursebooks.org.
4. Lamb, R. M., Studdert, D. M., Bohmer, R.M., Berwick, D.M. & Brennan, T.A. (2003). Hospital disclosure practices: Result of a national survey. Health Affairs, 22, 73-83.
5. Mitchell, P. (2008). Defining patient safety and quality care. In R.G. Hughes (Ed.), Patient safety and quality: An evidence-based handbook for nurses (pp.1-1-6). Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Publication No. 08-0043.
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