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Nurse to patient ratio and patient outcomes
Nurse to patient ratio and patient outcomes
Nurse to patient ratio and patient outcomes
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Every day there is a constant trust adhered to many different people in the profession of Nursing—the decision of what will help patients in terms of medicine, and the confidence to make these decisions. One false act or one slight misdiagnoses of medication to a patient could be the prime factor in whether the patient lives or dies. Nurses in hospitals across the country are spread thin, and thus makes the probability of mistakes higher. If a medicinal dose is off by even one decimal a patient could die, so the only real answer is for nurses to not be afraid to ask for assistance, always follow procedure and voice opinion is they feel something is wrong. Firstly, every year there are many deaths associated with medical errors. Sarah Loughran writes, “An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002…” (medicalnewstoday.com) and this was just in 2000, 2001, and 2002 with the numbers bouncing higher or lower each year; nevertheless, there seems to be no end in sight for errors in the medical field. There is a way to lower these numbers drastically. The way to do this is by leveling the doctor to nurse ratio in hospitals thereby eliminating the stress factors on most nurses whom often have several patients to attend by themselves but no help in doing so. While demand for nurses may be high, there also comes a breaking point for any human being, “…factors including the high acuity of patients, inadequate nurse to patient ratios, increased work demand, and decreased resources.” (American Journal of Critical Care, 503.) The leading causes of most errors among stress and interruption are other factors such as: wrong dosage, dose omissi... ... middle of paper ... ...rking in the hospitals all across the nation, and employing confident employees to those positions will make a large impact on how well people are treated in medical facilities. Every nurse should follow procedure and focus on the job at hand—healing people. Works Cited JB McKenzie, et al. "STRATEGIES USED BY CRITICAL CARE NURSES TO IDENTIFY, INTERRUPT, AND CORRECT MEDICAL ERRORS." American Journal of Critical Care 19.6 (2010): 500-509. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. EBSCO. Web. 7 Mar. 2011. Loughran, Sarah. "In Hospital Deaths from Medical Errors at 195,000 per Year USA." medicalnewstoday.com. Medical News Today, 09 Aug. 2004. Web. 7 Mar. 2011. 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.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported in 1999 that between 44,000 and 98,000 people die each year in the United States due to a preventable medical error. A report written by the National Quality Forum (NQF) found that over a decade after the IOM report the prevalence of medical errors remains very high (2010). In fact a study done by the Hearst Corporation found that the number of deaths due to medical error and post surgical infections has increased since the IOM first highlighted the problem and recommended actions to reduce the number of events (Dyess, 2009).
Baccalaureate nurses are responsible for providing and ensure our patients safety. The knowledge from others mistakes can help informs nurses of extra precautions that we can take to ensure our patient’s safety. Risk Analysis and Implication for practice course helped me understand the steps I as a nurse can take as well as the facilities I work for to help reduce the number of medication errors that occur. Interviewing the pharmacist help me get a better insight to what facilities already have in place to help prevent medication errors. However like most things you have to have educated and compassionate caring staff to enforce and follow the guidelines set in place.
Paul Mountjoy, a reporter of the Washington Times, asks whether medical errors are ranking third in causing deaths in US. In the article, he notes that medical error complications are an emerging major public health issue as he reports that nearly 400,000 American patients die annually due to complications resulting from medical errors. The trend seems to be growing because nearly 10 years ago the figure was nearly 250,000 cases. This is according to a report by Dr. Starfield. Without much guess, this confirms that actually medical errors rank third in killing American citizens. Cancer and heart complications of course take the lead.
It is not unheard of for a nurse to accidentally make a medication error by not following the five rights of medication administration; this could potentially harm a patient. If the nurse reports the mistake right away to their supervisor, regardless of the consequences and makes sure the patient is safe they are being honest and acting in the best interest of their pat...
Tang, F.I., Sheu, S.J., Yu, S., Wei, I.L., & Chen, C.H. (2007). Nurses relate the contributing factors involved in medication errors. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 16(3), 447-457.Retrived form EBSCOhost.
Tzeng, H., Yin, C., & Schneider, T. E. (2013). Medication Error-Related Issues In Nursing Practice. MEDSURG Nursing, 22(1), 13-50.
Healthcare errors occur at an alarmingly high incidence and are the eighth leading cause of death (IOM, 2000; Langdrigan, Parry, Bones, Goldman, and Sharek, 2010). The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) has estimated that there are 40,000 incidents of medical errors every day. At least 1.5 million preventable medication errors occur each year in the United States. Nurses, as one of the largest groups of healthcare providers, have new roles and responsibilities to improve patient safety and quality. Nurses can attempt to do this through being educated.
O’Shea, E (1999) Factors contributing to medication errors: a literature review. Journal of Clinical Nursing. 8, 5,496-503.
There is a necessity to monitor medication errors as they are responsible for injury in 1 of 25 hospitalised patients. While the medication error rates in hospitals ranges from 4.4 to 59.1%, worldwide reporting of medication errors is less than 5%. A report from Institute of Medicine (IOM) “To err is Human: Building a safer health system” (Nov 1999) stated that 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die each year as a result of medication errors and it is the eighth leading cause of death among Americans. A comprehensive population based Harvard Medical Practice study reported that 4% of medication errors related injury resulted in prolonged hospital stay or disability. It is reported that although 14% of injuries were serious/fatal most of the errors (69%) were preventable errors. United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) reported that 2% of hospital admission was due to ...
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
Decision making in RN’s practice starts with the beginning of a nurse’s day. The nurse must prioritize which patient to access first and which patient to administer medications first, especially in light of upcoming surgeries and procedures. The nurse must also consider patient’s current blood and other test results in order to decide whether it might be necessary to contact the healthcare provider and report any abnormalities. Since the nurse is the person that is the most with the patient during his hospital stay, she is the one that is the most familiar with that patient and his condition. Therefore even a subtle change she notices in her patient’s condition on assessment, can lead to change of treatment which in some cases might save that patient’s life or greatly contribute to the positive o...
To successfully provide care to a patient the nurse must administer many different types of medications. Medication errors are one of the leading causes of avoidable harm to patients. There are many medications that have serious consequences if an incorrect dose is delivered. Administering some medications simultaneously can also cause serious reactions. Facilities attempt different initiatives to decrease these errors. Ultimately, it is up to the nurse to be educated on the medications they will be administering and ensure that the medication is administered correctly and accurately.
Now, this specific study is referring to adverse events all over the hospitals such as the operating room, intensive care unit, and emergency room. This is important because nurses are not just on a medical surgical floor, nurses are throughout the hospital administering an assortment of medications to several different patients in several different age groups. When looking at the patient outcomes from this study, 19.1% experienced temporary disability, 7.0% were permanently disabled, and 7.4% died from an adverse event (Tzeng, 2013). Over 7% of patients died from a medication error that we as nurses strive to prevent, but unfortunately to err is human. We as humans are not perfect and make mistakes, but patients’ lives are at stake. Nurses must have compassion and love for caring for those around them, and when it comes to our patients we need to have the utmost care and heart for them. In 2007 the Joint Commission came to the conclusion that communication and procedural compliance were the two most frequently noted causes of medication administration errors (Tzeng, 2013). Communication errors can happen between anyone including the patients and physicians which it is why telephone read back is important when receiving a prescription order from a physician over the phone to reduce the number of transcription
First we will discuss the problems of medications errors, safety precautions, uses of electronic devices in aiding management of medications and related statistics to medications being given. Furthermore, medication errors are a huge part of the nursing community. Nurses are in charge of giving medications and they are to be held accountable if things are to go wrong. However, sometimes it not exactly the nurses fault if a medication error is to occur. To go a little bit
It is shocking to know that every year 98000 patients die from medical errors that can be prevented(Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J. M., & Donaldson, M. S. (Eds.), 2000). Medical errors are not a new issue in our healthcare system; these have been around for a long time. Hospitals have been trying to improve quality care and patients safety by implementing different strategies to prevent and reduce medical errors for past thirty years. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in America (Allen, 2013). In addition medical errors are costing our healthcare system an estimated $735 billion to $980 billion (Andel, Davidow, Hollander, & Moreno, 2012).