Introduction
The health care problem I have selected is medication errors. Medication errors constitute a common cause of mortality and suffering worldwide and can happen at any stage of the medication reconciliation process (Manias et al., 2020). Since medication errors can potentially occur in every part of the healthcare system, they become a topic of interest for medical professionals to investigate. In my experience, I witnessed cases where the patient was subjected to medication errors, confusing it with a side-effect. Fortunately, the procedures were implemented promptly, and harsh consequences were prevented.
Using the databases like PubMed and UpToDate and the criteria of credibility and validity, I searched for current academic peer-reviewed journal articles published during the past five years that relate to the given topic. Since all the four sources I found are from an academic peer-reviewed journal published relatively recently, and the information contained in them is still relevant, these information sources are credible.
Annotated Bibliography
Asensi-Vicente, J., Jiménez-Ruiz, I., & Vizcaya-Moreno, M. F. (2018). Medication errors involving nursing students. Nurse Educator, 43(5).Â
This article aims to collect scientific data on pharmaceutical errors made by undergraduate nursing majors. The authors located six papers that examined the features of student medication mistakes. This research discussed various root causes, aggravating elements, and patient damage. These researchers, in contrast, demonstrated better agreement over the different error categories. Despite the heterogeneity, medication dosage errors were primarily reported in the papers. The importance of knowledge of the types of medication errors committed most of the time provides a considerable rationale for the inclusion of the given article. According to the article’s findings, further research is necessary to determine the most effective methods for the timely identification and avoidance of medication errors made by nursing students. Using tools for pharmaceutical mistakes and various information technologies during patient care represents exciting and novel ways that will undoubtedly assist in patient safety in complement to efficient monitoring of students in medical activity.
Dirik, H. F., Samur, M., Seren Intepeler, S., Hewison, A. (2018). Nurses’ identification and reporting of medication errors. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 28(5-6), 931–938.Â
The purpose of the article is to examine the role of nursing professionals in Turkey’s detection and reporting of drug errors. The frequency of error detection and report is higher for errors that could cause damage or fatality compared to the rate of error detection and report for errors that nursing staff believed were system-based or would not seriously hurt the patient. This is a problem since failure to notify errors jeopardizes patient safety. The inclusion of this article is essential as most medication-taking processes go hand in hand with nurses. Further, the article finds that patients’ safety may be jeopardized because nurses are afraid of the repercussions of disclosing a drug error. Nurses claimed that they would still find and report substantial prescription errors regardless of this. Such reports would almost certainly be sent to doctors. The failure to supervise the patients while taking medicine was an occurrence that most nurses thought did not have to be recorded.
Douglass, A. M., Elder, J., Watson, R., Kallay, T., Kirsh, D., Robb, W. G., Kaji, A. H., & Coil, C. J. (2018). A randomized controlled trial on the effect of a double check on the detection of medication errors. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 71(1).
The purpose of this study is to ascertain how frequently high-alert drugs are double-checked and whether doing so improves error detection. One of the most effective methods for preventing errors has been suggested: a double check by two nurses. The investigation was carried out at a university hospital in Torrance titled the Medical Center. A list of high-alert drugs must be double-checked before treatment is set by hospital protocol. In the study, nurses were advised to follow all day-to-day hospital routines as if they were in their regular workplace. The rationale for including this article comes from the need to check how effectively the preventive methods work concerning medication errors.
The article discovered that in the carefully monitored environment, nurses routinely performed a double check before giving out high-alert drugs and sporadically did so before giving out non-high-alert ones. It is uncertain if these nurses were extra cautious as they were being watched, forgot which meds needed a double check, or did a double check for another reason. It seemed as though the nurses routinely double-checked nearly everything.
Mieiro, D. B., Oliveira, É. B., Fonseca, R. E., Mininel, V. A., Zem-Mascarenhas, S. H., & Machado, R. C. (2019). Strategies to minimize medication errors in emergency units: An integrative review. Revista Brasileira De Enfermagem, 72(1), 307–314.Â
The purpose of the article is to evaluate the nursing staff’s methods for reducing drug mistakes in emergency departments. Nursing fundamentally influences this process, and numerous studies indicate that the nursing team is most frequently responsible for drug errors. In the current study, data analysis from one of the studies revealed that more mistakes were made when the nursing staff provided the medications in the morning, mainly when the prescriptions were written by hand. A rationale for the inclusion of this article is to clarify the cases when medication errors commonly might occur in order to remember them in the work process. The article concludes that an interdisciplinary team is necessary for the search for a secure working environment, with open communication among medical experts and the implementation of methods to break the relationship between drug errors and medicine errors. This study also reveals organizational, instructional, and new technological approaches successfully reducing and preventing prescription errors.
Conclusion
The main points I have learned from the given research include pharmaceutical errors made by undergraduate nursing students, detection and reporting of drug errors by nurses, and error detection and reduction methods. The main contributions of the sources I chose were helpful in that each article pointed out the issues from actual life practice at hospitals. The article enhanced my knowledge about the topics by setting the problem, providing the methods, and offering the study outcomes and future recommendations.
References
Asensi-Vicente, J., Jiménez-Ruiz, I., & Vizcaya-Moreno, M. F. (2018). Medication errors involving nursing students. Nurse Educator, 43(5).
Dirik, H. F., Samur, M., Seren Intepeler, S., Hewison, A. (2018). Nurses’ identification and reporting of medication errors. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 28(5-6), 931–938.
Douglass, A. M., Elder, J., Watson, R., Kallay, T., Kirsh, D., Robb, W. G., Kaji, A. H., & Coil, C. J. (2018). A randomized controlled trial on the effect of a double check on the detection of medication errors. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 71(1).
Mieiro, D. B., Oliveira, É. B., Fonseca, R. E., Mininel, V. A., Zem-Mascarenhas, S. H., & Machado, R. C. (2019). Strategies to minimize medication errors in emergency units: An integrative review. Revista Brasileira De Enfermagem, 72(1), 307–314.
Manias, E., Kusljic, S., & Wu, A. (2020). Interventions to reduce medication errors in adult medical and surgical settings: A systematic review. Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety, 11, 204209862096830.