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Medication Errors in Hospital

Medication Errors in Hospital

           The management of St. Mary & Elizabeth Medical Center, which offers both inpatient and outpatient services, has been focusing on improving the quality of services offered to their patients. It was noted that patients are complaining about their safety after the last review showed a decline in patient satisfaction with the care offered in the facility. Over the past five months, the hospital has reported an increase in the rate of medication errors, which has been a major concern. Medication errors are among the major patient safety issues in the hospital, especially among inpatients. The nurse manager at the hospital stated that there was a need to find a sustainable intervention to address the issue. Improvement of the skills to use information technology can be used to ensure that the problem of medication errors is avoided since most processes will be done through an automated system. 

The nurse manager at the hospital evaluated a survey conducted in the hospital a month ago, which indicated that the nurses struggled to effectively use the medication administration technologies that had been recently introduced in the facility. Also, upon questioning, some nurses who had been involved in medication error cases said that they get disrupted when in the process of administrating drugs which causes confusion when handling medication. The nurse manager has evaluated the situation and agrees that medication errors are a major issue that needs urgent attention. 

Addressing the issue will be important for the hospital as it will restore the trust of their patients and achieve their objective of offering quality and safe services to their patients. The hospital will also enhance its reputation through positive patient reviews and attract more clients, which would translate to increased revenue. 

Literature Review of the Issue

           Several research studies highlight the problem of medication errors in hospitals and the potential causes.

           Wondmieneh et al. (2020) conducted a study to evaluate the intensity and the factors that contribute medication errors in hospitals. The researchers collected data from self-reports by nurses and direct observation of nursing operations during medication administration. The findings of the study highlighted that out of 298 nurses, 203 of them reported having been involved in medication errors in the past year (Wondmieneh et al., 2020). The authors also established the factors that were highly associated with those medication errors. The factors included inadequate training, lack of official guidelines for medication administration, night shift duty, lack of adequate work experience, and interruptions when in the process of administering medications. The article relates directly to the issue as it provides evidence of the issue being a problem that hospital faces and gives the reasons that can lead to the issue of medication errors occurring. 

           Escrivá Gracia et al. (2019) conducted a study in three phases to determine the levels of knowledge associated with the use and administration of medications among critical-care nurses that are associated with the most common form of medication error. The authors acknowledged that medication administration is among the most common form of medication error. The findings of the study revealed that the general incidences of medication errors were 1.93% (Escrivá Gracia et al., 2019). The areas that were regarded to have the highest risks for errors were the antibiotics administration interval with 8.15% error; medication infusion, concentration, and dilution errors with 2.94%; and the last one was medications administered through nasogastric tubes with an error rate of 11.16% (Escrivá Gracia et al., 2019). The article is pertinent to the issue as it shows the connection between medication use, method of administration, and medication errors in the hospital.  

References

Escrivá Gracia, J., Brage Serrano, R., & Fernández Garrido, J. (2019). Medication errors and drug knowledge gaps among critical-care nurses: a mixed multi-method study. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4481-7

Wondmieneh, A., Alemu, W., Tadele, N., & Demis, A. (2020). Medication administration errors and contributing factors among nurses: a cross-sectional study in tertiary hospitals, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. BMC Nursing, 19(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-020-0397-0