The field of nursing has evolved over time and keeps changing every day. With the numerous changes comes improvement in the quality of care that nurses give on a daily basis. For example, nurses never used to wear gloves when performing a majority of their tasks such as administering injections or toileting patients. Over time, it was discovered that many patients carried diseases that were easily transferrable via body fluids or blood. As a result of the discovery, nurses began wearing gloves when performing a majority of their nursing care. This not only helped to protect the nurses from contracting numerous diseases, but the patients as well. The nurses were not transferring germs and bacteria from patient to patients because they were wearing gloves with every patient and discarding each of them when done. This is only one example of how the quality of nursing has changed over time. There are many more with a majority of the changes involving the administration of medications.
Improving the accuracy and efficiency of medication passing is a major contributor to improving the overall quality of nursing. Medications are key in improving a patient’s health and level of comfort. It’s the nurse’s priority to make sure the patient is safe when taking the majority of medications that many of them take. Nurses must take vitals, reassess, and evaluate the effectiveness of all medications administered. Medications function to maintain a person’s blood pressure, pulse, fluid balance, thyroid function, and many other things. There are also many different types of pain medications that are important when trying to improve the patient’s health because it is more likely their health will improve if they’re free of pain and comfortable. ...
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...), 243-248. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=24308090&dopt=abstractplus
Tzeng, H., Yin, C., & Schneider, T. E. (2013). Medication error-related issues in nursing practice. MEDSURG Nursing, 22(1), 13-50. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.ivcc.edu:2240/sp3.11.0a/ovidweb.cgi?&S=BGPPFPKNHIDDLPGANCMKDBMCBPDPAA00&Complete+Reference=S.sh.51%7c1%7c1
Wu, M., Lee, T., Tsai, T., Lin, K., Huang, C., Mills, M. (2013). Evaluation of a mobile shift report system on nursing documentation quality. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 31(2), 85-93. doi:10.1097/NXN.0b013e318266cac3
Yun, L., Clifford, P., Bjorneby, A., Thompson, B., Vannorman, S., Won, K., & Larsen, K. (2013). Quality improvement through implementation of discharge order reconciliation. American Journal Of Health-System Pharmacy, 70(9), 815-820. doi:10.2146/ajhp120050
Unver, V., Tastan, S., & Akbayrak, N. (2012). Medication errors: Perspectives of newly graduated and experienced nurses. International Journal Of Nursing Practice, 18(4), 317-324. doi:10.1111/j.1440-172X.2012.02052.x
The most common kind of medication error is administering the wrong medication or giving wrong doses. A medication error is any error that happens to patients whether they suffer any harmful results or not. Inappropriate nurses-to-patients ratio should be taken into consideration because it can cause medication errors. A new study shows that every year about 210,000-400,000 people who were admitted to the hospital die due to medication error; it also shows that is is “the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer”(MacDonald). For instance, an interview was done with Nurse Carol, a retired nurse; she said that she made a medication error while administering medication to one of her patients. She said that she was rushing and accidentally gave Cozaar to one of her patients instead of Colace. Cozaar is often used for high blood pressure and Colace is for constipation. She said her patient’s pressure dropped very low after taking the medication; she realized then that she gave the patient the wrong medication. Nurse Carol also said that if she did no...
For many patients the scariest part of being in the hospital is having to rely on other people to control their life changing decisions. There are multiple causes of patient harm, one of the major contributors are medication errors made by health care professional. Medication errors are inappropriate dispensing and administration of drugs which cause harmful effects such liver damage and excessive bleeding. Most cases of medication errors in hospitals occur as a result of wrong diagnosis by the doctors leading administration of inappropriate drug, poor communication between doctors and nurses and between patients and nurses who issue the drugs. However in an article by the International Journal of Nursing practice, in Australia many occurrences
Furthermore, short staffing affects the quality direct care each patient receives. The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (2012) states an estimated 98,000 individuals die every year from medical errors in the United States. One out of many significant tasks nurses do within their scope of practice is medication administration. Research shows a relationship between short staffing on medication errors: the longer the hours nurses work, the higher the chances of medication errors (Garnett, 2008). (include definition of medication error) Administering medications requires knowledge of patient rights, pharmacological information on the drug, adverse effects, proper dosage calculations, and hospital protocols. When nurses are assigned more patients, they are pressured to give due medications on time. Sometimes due to hunger or fatigue, nurses give the wrong medication to the wrong patient (Frith, Anderson, Tseng, & Fong, 2012).
Agyemang, REO, and A While. "Medication errors: types, causes and impact on nursing practice." British Journal of Nursing (BJN) 19.6 (2010): 380-385. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. EBSCO. Web. 7 Mar. 2011.
Medication errors made by medical staff bring about consequences of epidemic proportions. Medical staff includes everyone from providers (medical doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants) to pharmacists to nurses (registered and practical). Medication errors account for almost 98,000 deaths in the United States yearly (Tzeng, Yin, & Schneider, 2013). This number only reflects the United States, a small percentage in actuality when looking at the whole world. Medical personnel must take responsibility for their actions and with this responsibility comes accountability in their duties of medication administration. Nurses play a major role in medication error prevention and education and this role distinguishes them as reporters of errors.
A medication error is any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or harm to a patient (NCCMERP 2014). The death rate for medication errors averages around 7,000 deaths per year. Lawsuits for medication errors were mainly made against registered nurses because nurses are the last people to check a medication before it is administered. 426 medication error related lawsuits were made against registered nurses. (RightDiagnosis 2014).
Nurses are expected to provide a competent level of care that is indicative of their education, experience, skill, and ability to act on agency policies or procedures. In a study of 1,116 hospitals Bond, Raehl, and Franke (2001) found, “Medication errors occurred in 5.07% of the patients admitted each year to these hospitals. Each hospital experienced a medication error every 22.7 hours (every 19.73 admissions). Medication errors that adversely affected patient care outcomes occurred in 0.25% of all patients admitted to these hospitals/year”(p. 4). This means at least one medication error occurs every 24 hours in those facilities studied, and these are preventable errors. The main responsibilities of nurses when administering medications are to prevent or catch error, and report such error. Even if the physician or prescribing health care professional has made a mistake in the order, it is the nurse’s job to question the
Omission of medications is a common issue in the field of nursing. When patients miss their scheduled dosage of medication, it can cause harm. Nurses take an oath to do no harm to their patients. When a nurse purposely omits a medication, they are not properly acting within their nurse’s scope of practice. A nurse cannot make the decision to hold a medication based on ones believes, because they were interrupted, or because of time constraints. “The administration of medications is a major part of the role of the clinical nurse and is an activity prone to error” (Johnson, Tran, & Young, 2011 p. 553).
A newly employed critical care nurse was just about to finish a 12 hour night shift when she realized she had one more patient to administer medication to. It was the busiest Friday night shift she has ever worked due to poor nurse-patient ratio, and the workload felt impossible. She gave her last patient the properly prescribed medication, but failed to notice that the physician hastily wrote an updated dosage for a high risk medication, Digoxin. The patient’s heart rate began to slow down and life-saving procedures had to be activated. Medication errors are “any preventable event that may cause, or lead, to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer
Since my lab class of nursing practice in Ontario 1 (IEPN 125) has started, I learned about some medical devices and nursing practices which were different from my previous nursing experience, for example we did not have syringes with safety cap (needles with protective cap) in my work place.
(2014) shed light on two key components for infection control, which includes protecting patients from acquiring infections and protecting health care workers from becoming infected (Curchoe et al., 2014). The techniques that are used to protect patients also provide protection for nurses and other health care workers alike. In order to prevent the spread of infections, it is important for health care workers to be meticulous and attentive when providing care to already vulnerable patients (Curchoe et al., 2014). If a health care worker is aware they may contaminate the surroundings of a patient, they must properly clean, disinfect, and sterilize any contaminated objects in order to reduce or eliminate microorganisms (Curchoe et al., 2014). It is also ideal to change gloves after contact with contaminated secretions and before leaving a patient’s room (Curchoe, 2014). Research suggests that due to standard precaution, gloves must be worn as a single-use item for each invasive procedure, contact with sterile sites, and non-intact skin or mucous membranes (Curchoe et al., 2014). Hence, it is critical that health care workers change gloves during any activity that has been assessed as carrying a risk of exposure to body substances, secretions, excretions, and blood (Curchoe et al.,
Tzeng, H., Yin, C., & Schneider, T. E. (2013). Medication Error-Related Issues In Nursing Practice. MEDSURG Nursing, 22(1), 13-50.
O’Shea, E (1999) Factors contributing to medication errors: a literature review. Journal of Clinical Nursing. 8, 5,496-503.
Thirdly, the science of nursing is exemplified in the fact that nurses are partakers in the lot of people who are lifelong learners. With the presentation of new and diverse challenges by the day, new skills are gained. The medical profession being as dynamic as it is, requires efforts commensurate to the fast changing picture of the medical arena. New outbreaks emerge which prompts the development of new procedures and interventions.