The article analyzes the impact of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems in preventing and managing different medication errors. The article is useful as it reviews 14 EBP articles to determine whether the CPOE systems are beneficial in preventing medication errors. Also, the article highlights that prescription errors lead to medication administration errors. The most frequent errors were wrong dosage and wrong medication errors. This highlights that error in one stage transforms to an error in another stage leading to patient safety issues and low-quality care. By implementing a CPOE system it is possible to prevent errors, but not completely. As a result, nurses, pharmacists, and physicians should review the information from EHRs, patient history, and relevance of medication and its dosage to decide whether the medication is suitable for the patient or not. The article recommends the health care professionals to report the errors by verifying prescriptions, a patient’s HER data, and dispensed medicine to reduce and prevent all kinds of errors, which might lead to adverse and sentinel events.
Montgomery, A., Azuero, A., Baernholdt, M., Loan, L., Miltner, R., & Qu, H. et al. (2020). Nurse burnout predicts self-reported medication administration errors in acute care hospitals. Journal For Healthcare Quality, Publish Ahead of Print. https://doi.org/10.1097/jhq.0000000000000274
This article is very beneficial as it addresses the impact of burnout in nurses on medication errors. The study highlighted that increased workload and the lower nurse-to-patient ratio will lead to stress. This further reduces cognitive abilities and job satisfaction. A nurse who has more patients is more likely to commit errors during medication administration. Also, poor support in the work environment and timing of medication administration led to errors. To reduce medication errors, health care should reduce nurse burnout by increasing nurse to patient ratio, providing support in the workplace through interprofessional collaboration and decision-making, and implementing work-life balance strategies. The nurses and other health care professionals should identify the importance of burnout while administering medication to reduce errors to increase patient safety. The EBP approach is to limit the number of patients per nurse to provide timely and quality care and also manage burnout in nurses.
Thompson, K., Swanson, K., Cox, D., Kirchner, R., Russell, J., & Wermers, R. et al. (2018). Implementation of bar-code medication administration to reduce patient harm. Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Innovations, Quality & Outcomes, 2(4), 342-351. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocpiqo.2018.09.001
The article evaluates the effects of bar-code medication administration (BCMA) in reducing medication administration errors. The article is useful as it highlights the need for competencies, skills, and knowledge related to technologies to prevent errors. The article highlights that barcode system not only reduced medication errors, but it also reduced adverse events by 55%. This indicates that nurses can detect errors by just scanning each medicine, comparing the medicine with patient history, EHR information, prescription, and dispense reports. The nurse can directly collaborate with physicians and pharmacists to report the error and request for new orders to prevent adverse effects and increase patient safety.
Interprofessional collaboration strategies
Alabdulhafith, M., Alqarni, A., & Sampalli, S. (2018). Customized communication between healthcare members during the medication administration stage. Proceedings Of The 20Th International Conference On Human-Computer Interaction With Mobile Devices And Services, 18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3229434.3229483
The article proposes a mobile application-based customized communication model for nurses, physicians, and pharmacists to detect, report, and manage medication administration errors. A mobile application with e-mail messaging, SMS integration, and internet-based texting allows nurses and others to directly communicate with the concerned personnel. This is critical as reporting errors and getting a response from others might take time, but this approach reduces the issue as all the information will be directly sent to mobile devices. As a result, errors can be reduced and timely care can be provided. This mode of communication and collaboration also reduces the need for documentation as every piece of information is stored electronically or digitally. By applying this EBP approach, medication
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