Nursing Informatics and Prevention of Medication Errors

A medication error is actually any preventable incident that could result in or pave way towards wrong medication usage or perhaps patient harm. Such incidents might be associated with professional activities of healthcare professionals, healthcare solutions, monitoring, education, administration, distribution, dispensing, compounding, nomenclature, packaging, product labeling, order communication, prescriptions, systems, procedures, as well as use.
While it may be the outcome of problems within the system or perhaps plain human mistake, medication slipups result in serious bodily harm and sometimes even death for patients. These avoidable mistakes may also result in serious economic, psychological, and mental stress to not only the healthcare organization but also the provider (QuckSmart, 2017).
Healthcare informatics Objectives and medical errors
The objective here's gathering adequate info which would assist in grasping the implication of medical mistakes and what might be carried out to lessen and/or completely alleviate them. In the interest of acquiring and synthesizing information, attaining knowledge from the synthesized data and gaining wisdom is the procedure adopted in this paper. The keywords used were searched in online Welden Library databases as well as the pertinent links examined further.
Keywords searched: Medication errors, impact of medication errors, prevention of medication errors, avoiding medication errors.
The keyword search paved way for the subsequent results:
Cloete (2015) found that medication errors continue to be the key reason for unintended patient harm. These errors add to negative situations which compromise patient safety and turn out to be a big financial burden to the healthcare. Medication errors prevention, which may take place at any stage from preparing medicines to distributing and prescribing them, is actually crucial to keep a safe and progressive healthcare system (Cloete, 2015). Based on Cloete (2015) findings almost 35% of these errors that harms patients take place in the nursing administration stage: supervising medicines to patients is consequently a high-risk activity. Cloete (2015) reveals factors which add to medication mistake; the biggest one being the organizational culture of safety. Additionally, it discusses factors which relate specifically to nurses, like patient acuity and nurse workload, the diversions and interruptions that can take place during medicine administration, the intricacy of some medicinal calculations as well as administration methods, along with the nursing failure to follow guidelines or policies.
The research carried out by Cloete (2015) is actually essential in understanding the reasons underlying medicinal mistakes. Cloete (2015) outlines specific areas including safety culture and medication administration by nurses. Cloete (2015) additionally reveals distractions and workload as possible explanations for medication mistakes. The info acquired from Cloete (2015) is actually applicable given that it outlines the probable causes of medication mistakes and what must be carried out to stop it. The practical use of this info is unambiguous.
Athanasakis (2012): this study had similar findings and indicate that medicinal supervision of patients is actually a key part of nursing practice and poses a higher threat of medicinal errors (Athanasakis, 2012). The factors underlying medication mistakes are actually sometimes systemic and other times they can be individual as well. To avoid errors before they happen, establishing safety protocols is critical. The intent behind Athanasakis (2012) research had been to explore the safety measures adopted by the nursing professionals to avert medication errors. A search involving Science Direct, Medline, along with Cochrane Library was carried out to recover literature published between January 2000 and August 2011. Results suggested that safety measures related to medication errors are actually involved with the medications planning and administration, the nurses’ ability to calculate the dosage, the nurses’ education, the oral medication prescription, the inter-disciplinary cooperation, the nursing manager as well as changes in issues related to health systems of medication management (Athanasakis, 2012).
Athanasakis (2012) reviews preventive actions taken by nurses after occurrence of medication mistakes. As it's apparent, one will find loads of variables that have to be used in healthcare units to achieve very low rates of medicinal mistakes. Athanasakis (2012) additionally reveals that the demand for more research in order to prove the usefulness of each and every action taken to minimize medication error. By specifying medication supervision as well as education level of nurses Athanasakis (2012) confirms the results of Cloete (2015). This particular data translates to knowledge as well as leads to wisdom as it shows how one can avoid medicinal errors.
Choi et al. (2016): Research carried out by Choi et al. (2016) points out that medication errors taken place at a speed of 0.8 per one-hundred admissions, or perhaps 1.6 per one-thousand patient days. Many mistakes took place during the administration phase when the medication was being used. Probably the most typical errors types had been omission errors, wrong dose, wrong medication, and wrong time. Choi et al. (2016) additionally discovered that treatment expenses attributed to medication errors had been in excess of 8000 USD when one uses the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition model and almost 9000 USD when one uses the Recycled-Prediction model.
In line with the research results carried out by Choi et al. (2016) medication errors are actually connected with substantial extra costs, even devoid of patient harm. Taking into consideration the considerable costs related to drug incidents that do lead to patient harm, the eradication of medication mistakes must be further stressed and advanced; as well as, guidelines must be put together to facilitate this objective. This particular study reveals the expenses association and the need to reduce the level of medication errors. To achieve this almost all researchers point out that medication errors are drastically higher during the administration of medication and this is exactly where a great deal of focus has to be placed.
Summary
All the researchers appear to agree that medication supervision, nursing education, as well as, the organizational safety culture contribute substantially to medication errors. The recommendations provided by Chen et al. (2017) has the support of empirical evidence that clinical pharmacists' supervision and recommendations related to medication administration works well in reducing costs related to medication errors. The sensible conclusion would be that the data gathered is very efficient in acquiring and implementing ideas that lead to avoidance of medication errors.


References
Athanasakis, E. (2012). Prevention of medication errors made by nurses in clinical practice. Health Science Journal.
Chen, C. C., Hsiao, F. Y., Shen, L. J., & Wu, C. C. (2017). The cost-saving effect and prevention of medication errors by clinical pharmacist intervention in a nephrology unit. Medicine (United States), 96(34)
Choi, I., Lee, S.-M., Flynn, L., Kim, C., Lee, S., Kim, N.-K., & Suh, D.-C. (2016). Incidence and treatment costs attributable to medication errors in hospitalized patients. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 12(3), 428–437. 
Cohen, M. R. (2015, September 1). Medication Errors. Nursing. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
Cloete, L. (2015). Reducing medication errors in nursing practice. Nursing Standard, 29(20), 50–59. 
QuckSmart (2017). Impact of Medication Errors on Patients, Healthcare Providers and Hospitals. Retrieved 21, December, 2017, From https://www.qlicksmart.com/impact-medication-errors/