Electronic medication administration records (MAR) are useful in displaying medications due at specific times. Not only is it possible to sort the medications due at one time, the MAR will also alert the nurse to potential drug interactions. Late medications will be displayed in red to be easily seen. If bar coding is implemented, medication errors can be reduced by a range of 60%-97% (Hunter, 2011).…
With wide range of services provided by a set of trained & certified professionals, the finest centers in Queensland like Burpengary Chiropractic Center have made their name in healthcare as best in the business. It is also known as one of the top North Brisbane Chiropractic centers.…
The economic impact of bribes in emerging economies “can increase the cost of a project by 10 percent,”1 and distorts public expenditure. Corruption can also be a contributing factor “to economic and political unrest by exacerbating income inequality, resulting in the denial of fundamental human rights for many citizens.” 2 Corruption and bribes lead to an unfair playing field for honest companies, and good people in face lose business.…
Medication errors are reaching dangerous levels in Long Term Care Facilities and technology can help to alleviate this problem. Is there a better and more effective way of charting medications for distributing medications to help the med-pass run more efficiently? The med-pass is the process of distributing medications to an individual in a long-term care facility or other medical type setting. Incorporating Bar Code Technology, which implements electronic charting is a more accurate and more thorough way to document medications given. The use of Bar Code Medication Administration Technology will decrease the amount…
Any kind of error, whether it causes no harm to the patient or kills the patient, is still an error that needs to be reported and addressed. This collection of data begins with looking at the CPOE (electronic physician orders), Pyxis dispense history, eMAR, narcotic waste history (if a narcotic error), barcode scans, and the stage that the error occurred. These are all important data pieces to collect and analyze in order to pain the picture of what happened and why. The stages of where/when the error occurred are very important for identifying patient harm. Stage one is considered a prescribing error where the incorrect drug or dose is selected for a patient. This kind of error is also the cause of illegible handwriting and/or the misspelling of a drug with a similar name (Williams, 2007). Prescription errors make up for between 1-11% of all written prescriptions (Sanders & Esmail, 2003). Stage two is where dispensing errors occur. This is considered to be selection of the wrong product where usually there are look alike and sound alike drugs involved such as Losec and Lasix. Step three and four are the preparation and administering stages and the rates of these errors vary between 3.5% and 49% (NPSA, 2007). These stages are areas of high risk within nursing practice where nurses fail to verify important information such as drug, patient, dose, time, and route (Williams, 2007). IV drugs are suggested to be as high as 25% of medication errors in these stages (Bruce & Wong, 2001). Stage five is errors in monitoring outcome. Patients take certain drugs that require continuous monitoring to ensure the dosing is correct and there are no adverse…
Acrochordons, or cutaneous skin tags, are small benign skin growths, though in some cases may be up to a half-inch long. Usually located on the neck, armpits, and other body folds, Acrochordons are skin colored (sometimes darker) and have a narrow stalk. They usually occur after midlife.…
The following paper explores eight published articles that address the issue of bar code scanning for medication administration and patient safety. Online research was conducted to locate and review articles which are included in review of literature, and to acquire accurate information addressing the issues discussed. The understanding of Bar Code Scanning for Medication Administration (BCMA) is a valuable tool, providing safe practice needed to reduce medication errors leading to safer patient handling. Patient safety is defined by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) as the prevention of harm caused by errors of commission and omission (Henneman, 2010, p. 8). The use of BCMA changed medication administration, documentation, and communication regarding patient care (Spetz, Burgress, & Phibbs, 2012, p. 158).…
The nurse manager has direct impact on the development and implementation of tools such as…
Errors made while administering medications are one of the most common patient safety, health care errors reported. It is estimated that 7,000 hospitals deaths yearly are attributed to medication administration errors, and each error can cost a health care organization over $8000 per occurrence. (Anderson & Townsend, 2015. p.18). Nurses spend a significant amount of time managing, preparing, and administering medications. Nurses can spend up to forty percent of their day, involved in tasks that center around medication administration (Bourbonnais & Caswell, 2014). Over the past few years, there has been an incredible amount of new technology introduced in health care that affect medication administration. Electronic health records, computerized order entry, smart pumps, and bar-code medication charting all add complexity to the task of medication administration. Bar-code medication administration (BCMA) is one safety measure that can be implemented that can reduce medication administration safety errors and adverse…
The use of two patient identifiers to verify that the correct medicine and/or treatment is being given to the correct patient is the first National Patient Safety Goal of 2016. In an acute care setting, nurses implement this during medication administration by scanning patient identification bracelets and confirming the patient’s name and date of birth verbally.…
From the past ,Health care workers wear facing a very serious and sensitive problem while treating patient which is Medications Errors. Patient safety is characterized as opportunity from incidental harm because of medical care, or absence of medicinal blunders, or absence of abuse in administrations. Medical error is: "a failure in the therapeutic process that can possibly lead to harm to the patient"(1). It occurs when a health care provider selects improper technique in care or improperly executes an proper strategy of care. Medical errors can happen anywhere in the health care system: In hospitals, clinics, operations rooms, doctors' offices, nursing homes, pharmacies, and patients' homes. Errors can happen…
Each year in the United States there are just over 450,000 reported medication errors, they are the sixth leading cause of death, as well as costing the health care industry roughly 3.8 billion dollars (Flanders & Clark, 2010). QSEN’s published mission statement is to, “Address the challenge of preparing future nurses who will have the knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSAs) necessary to continuously improve the quality and safety of the healthcare systems within which they work.” (2016). QSEN has seen the devastating effects that medication errors have had on the nursing profession and are continuously publishing refined guidance and evidence based best practices to better prevent…
Recent research has had little success in identifying the specific factors that are associated with high medication error rates but nursing professionals can help to reduce the amount of medication errors in health care facilities by participating in research and educating others on the identified factors associated with medication errors.…
According to their research, 526,186 incidents occurred, with 16% of the incidents causing patient harm and 0.95% resulting in serious harm or death (Cousins et al. 2012). A U.S. study by the Institute of Medicine found that medication errors cause harm to approximately 1.5 million people and kill several thousand each year in the U.S. (Diamond, 2006). While not Canadian statistics, these values are a demonstration of the seriousness of drug errors. Medication errors can lead the patient and their family to become increasingly worried about the safety of their loved ones and about the quality of care they are receiving (Kim & Bates, 2012). The adverse effects of the drug could also result in a prolonged hospital visit, leading to further isolation from the patient’s normal routine and social life. In addition, the nurse who administered the medication would also face several social issues. Often a nurse who makes a medication error faces increased scrutiny from their peers; if the mistake is severe enough the nurse could face disciplinary action such as a suspension of their nursing license. This…
In addition, space for dispensing medications should be in a separate place without extra noise or distractions with unit dose dispensing systems. The nurse should verify drugs before administration, especially for high-alert drugs and blood transfusions because these can result in very serious side effects and reactions, which can be life threatening. Technology has made preparing medicines simpler, easier, and safer such as the use of barcodes, Omnicells, and small cabinets outside each door that contain the patient’s medicine, and only the nurses can open them. When the nurse is preparing medicines, there needs to be a no interruption zone marked with yellow duct tape and signs. To make it even safer, the nurse can wear a bright colored vest that says “no interruptions” when preparing and passing drugs. This would show that the nurse is in the process of passing medicines and would…