Reducing Medication Error In Nursing
Medication errors remain the most preventable cause of injury in healthcare today impacting and influencing all six QSEN (Quality & Safety Education for Nurses) competencies; Patient Centered Care, Safety, Evidence Based Practice, Quality Improvement, Informatics, Teamwork, Collaboration, and Professionalism. The effective implementation of medication reconciliation is an effective tool in reducing medication errors, eliminating costly mistakes, fostering teamwork, collaboration and professionalism as well as ensuring patient safety.
Discussion
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 …show more content…
Mediation reconciliation is imperative during different points of care to ensure that preventable medication errors are caught such as; medications can be accidentally listed multiple times or not at all, some drugs can be listed that patients never have taken before or their medical practitioner never prescribed, medications can also have the wrong dose, route, frequency and time. In some cases they may not be appropriate for the patient due to drug allergies, or drug interactions, or they are irrelevant to the patient's current medical
Discussion
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 …show more content…
Mediation reconciliation is imperative during different points of care to ensure that preventable medication errors are caught such as; medications can be accidentally listed multiple times or not at all, some drugs can be listed that patients never have taken before or their medical practitioner never prescribed, medications can also have the wrong dose, route, frequency and time. In some cases they may not be appropriate for the patient due to drug allergies, or drug interactions, or they are irrelevant to the patient's current medical