People make mistakes in life. But in most cases, their results are slightly small. However, in a healthcare facility, errors can lead to severe problems including the death of a patient. Thus, a medication error by a nurse can be the worst nightmare. This paper seeks to discuss the relevance of knowledgeable nursing medication as a way of preventing medication errors.
There are some reasons why medication errors can occur. Most of them often happen due to distraction where a nurse has no enough time to concentrate on one thing at a time. The most common types of errors are omission errors, wrong time errors, improper dosing errors, false dose errors, improper administration techniques errors, and false drug preparation errors. Omission errors when a nurse fails to administer medication before the next one is scheduled. Wrong time mistakes are a result of giving drugs outside the predetermined interval. Dosing errors occur due to either giving a greater or lesser amount of drugs is provided than is required to manage the body condition of the patient. Nurses ought to be knowledgeable enough to administer medication effectively to save lives entrusted to them to prevent these mistakes.
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The ultimate goal of this knowledge for nurses is for them to administer the correct drug at the right time to the appropriate patient. Sloan his article suggests that nurses should not only trust what they receive from a doctor but to also verify using their judgment before administering. He also points out that nurses are trained to use a list of five rights when administering medication; right medication, right dose, right patient and the proper technique. The technology such as barcode scanning should not replace this but should act as a second check. If anything is not definite, a nurse should take at least a few minutes to clarify rather than rushing to administer and later causing a severe medication error that is harmful to the patient. If a medication error occurs, the workflow of the nurse is interrupted anyway.
Clear communication between the concerned healthcare workers when dealing with drug administration is essential. A miscommunication between a physician and a nurse may lead to a medication error (Washington et al., 2004) . Sometimes nurses may not be apparent when handing off shifts to one another. A miscommunication is likely to cause one or more errors. On the other hand, a patient has a right to raise the alarm in case something is not right. In as much as they should trust the medical professionals, they should also understand that human is to error. They should not fear to disclose any matter concerning their health. Being secretive on such issues may worsen the whole situation. In the case where a medication error occurs, a nurse should openly disclose all the factors leading to the occurrence. It will help in addressing the issue to prevent future risk of it reoccurring.
The knowledge should help the nurses in reducing the number of errors if not eliminating them. No matter how much someone is careful, a mistake can still occur. It should not mean that the nurse responsible should hide it. He or she must speak out for it to be addressed. The physicians, on the other hand, should give a listening ear and promise to be supportive. Working together as a team will not only improve the quality of services rendered but also make each concerned party free with each other.
In conclusion, there are two crucial things that a nurse can do to reduce the cases of medication errors. One is that they should be knowledgeable about all kinds of medications and their procedures. Lastly, they should not assume that the physicians are perfect in administering medications; they should verify it first.
Reference
Washington, D., Erickson, J. I., & Ditomassi, M. (2004). Mentoring the minority nurse leader of tomorrow. Nursing Administration Quarterly , 28 (3), 165-169.
