As an RN nurse, I have the role of offering quality care to patients and leading healthcare promotions that promotes quality of life within the population. I am directly involved in direct care of patients, implying that medication errors affect my work directly. The error in my nursing unit can result in loss of life. For example, a colleague was in a hurry to give medication to a patient using the automated drug cabinet. She typed two letters (VE) and searched. She took the first drug on the list and gave it to a patient. It turned out that the nurses gave Versed drug instead of Vecuronium, resulting in adverse impact. This incident helped me understand how fatal medication errors can be in a clinic. I developed a keen interest in checking and confirming medications before administration to limit the chances of medication errors that would affect patient safety.
I could access various articles related to my topic of interest by using an online search of relevant articles within the University Library database. ProQuest and PubMed central are examples of databases I used in my search. I used keywords such as “medication errors” and “patient safety” in searching for relevant articles. In the advanced search options, I limited my search to peer-reviewed journals in nursing and medicine. The articles published in the last five years were the publication range that also assisted in selecting the articles.
To ensure the credibility of my articles, I selected journal articles published within the last five years. I ensured that the sources were authored by professionals who have been in the medical field for many years. To ensure the authors’ fame, I conducted a minor search online to prove various journals they authored in the past.
In ensuring that the selected sources contained the relevant information on my topic of interest, I confirmed whether they bore actual facts about medication errors and the dependent and independent variables they compared in their studies. I also confirmed if each piece of information in the article defined a clear purpose and contained information on medication errors.
Billstein-Leber, M., Carrillo, C. J. D., Cassano, A. T., Moline, K., & Robertson, J. J. (2018). ASHP guidelines on preventing medication errors in hospitals. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 75(19), 1493-1517. DOI 10.2146/ajhp170811
This article highlights ways of preventing medication errors in hospitals. The main goal of this study is to achieve a defined therapeutic outcome that aims to improve patient safety and quality of life by minimizing patient risk. The authors comment that blaming individual healthcare professionals for medication errors or passively encouraging these professionals to be keen might not be effective in preventing errors. This is because such measures do not change the underlying factors contributing to medication errors. Again, the study reveals that the healthcare system cannot solve the problem of medication errors, but they can ensure they reduce such errors. Reducing medication errors in healthcare is a positive outcome because humans are prone to mistakes. They believe that participating in multidisciplinary committees and taking an active role in evaluating and monitoring medication use improves the system to ensure a safe medication process. Therefore, this article is relevant in discussing medication errors as it examines various ways that healthcare professionals would use to reduce instances of medication errors in the healthcare system.
Di Simone, E., Giannetta, N., Auddino, F., Cicotto, A., Grilli, D., & Di Muzio, M. (2018). Medication errors in the emergency department: knowledge, attitude, behavior, and training needs of nurses. Indian journal of critical care medicine: peer-reviewed, official publication of Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine, 22(5), 346. https://doi.org/10.4103%2Fijccm.IJCCM_63_18.
This article authored by Di Simone et al. (2018) aimed to describe the elements of nurse knowledge, behavior, training needs, and attitude in preventing medication errors in emergency units. The study samples 103 nurses from a university hospital in Rome, where they were subjected to a questionnaire made up of 43 items. The authors believed that patient safety is a primary concern in the emergency units, and nurses are directly responsible or play a major role in meeting patient safety obligations. Therefore, investing in the nurses through training and well-being would significantly affect medication e
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