Nursing Care Issue and Outcome
Medication errors constitute one of the most common nursing care issues that can lead to negative health outcomes for patients. Since nurses’ most crucial professional aim is reducing the possibilities of adverse events for patients, it is necessary to avoid such errors and work hard on preventing them. The most typical types of medication errors are the rate of infusion and wrong dosage (Cheragi, Manoocheri, Mohammadnejad, & Ehsani, 2013). The most typical causes of medication errors are using abbreviations rather than full titles of drugs and similarities in drugs’ titles (Cheragi et al., 2013). Thus, it is possible to conclude that the major reason for the analyzed nursing care issue is insufficient pharmacological knowledge.
It is necessary to eliminate medication errors in order to increase patients’ chances for prompt recovery. One of the ways of enhancing the quality of nurses’ work in this aspect is the use of computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems (Darley et al., 2013). Applying this method enables healthcare specialists to improve patient outcomes and reduce the number of errors.
Details of the Issue
A person who is ill faces a variety of risks due to the character of the disease. However, apart from these dangers, there is a threat of becoming a victim of someone’s inattention or lack of knowledge. Medication errors are a common nursing care issue that traumatizes millions of people yearly. Out of these, over 22,000 cases lead to patients’ death (Matthews-King, 2018). Not only do medication errors harm patients physically, but they also cause considerable financial losses. Research indicates that nearly $77 million is wasted annually due to the nursing care issue in question (Cheragi et al., 2013). Thus, the problem causes serious complications at different levels, which necessitates finding effective solutions to it.
Research findings indicate that the frequency of medication errors varies in different cases. For instance, Cheragi et al. (2013) have identified that errors are most frequently associated with the wrong infusion rate and giving the wrong dose of medication. Administering drugs at wrong times, drug elimination, and doubling the dose occur less frequently (Cheragi et al., 2013). The least common reason for medication errors is giving the patient’s drugs to another person (Cheragi et al., 2013). Such data testify that nurses need to be cautious of several crucial aspects of medication administration and make sure that they do not let their carelessness become the cause of someone’s health deterioration
Reason Issue Selected
The reason why I selected medication errors as an outstanding nursing care issue is that many patients suffer from them. At the hospital where I used to work, there once was a case when the nurse prescribed the wrong dose of Demerol to a patient, and he died of a heart attack. At that point, I realized how significant it is to be extremely attentive and cautious when choosing the dosage of drugs. I would like to draw the attention of my peers to this problem since it may lead to rather severe outcomes. According to statistics, medical errors, including medication ones, are the third-leading cause of death in the US (Sipherd, 2018). These data are alarming, so it is necessary to make efforts to reduce the number of errors made by healthcare professionals.
References
Cheragi, M. A., Manoocheri, H., Mohammadnejad, E., & Ehsani, S. R. (2013). Types and causes of medication errors from nurse’s viewpoint. Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research, 18(3), 228-231.
Matthews-King, A. (2018). NHS medication errors contribute to as many as 22,000 deaths a year, major report shows. Independent. Web.
Radley, D. C., Wasserman, M. R., Olsho, L. E. W., Shoemaker, S. J., Spranca, M. D., & Bradshaw, B. (2013). Reduction in medication errors in hospitals due to adoption of computerized provider order entry systems. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 20, 470-476.
Sipherd, R. (2018). The third-leading cause of death in US most doctors don’t want you to know about. CNBC. Web.