Medication administration safety Research Paper

Medication administration safety - Research Paper ExampleAccording to a angiotensin-converting enzyme year long study conducted at Albany Medical center, the number was music errors was 3.99 per 1000 medications (Cardinale, 1997, 1).Most medication errors are said to occur owing to problems of both individuals as well the system (Montesi & Lechi, 2009, p652) and in distributively case these errors hamper the patients adversely. At the individual level health caregivers are prone to misread drugs labels, saturate the wrong patient, and administer wrong dosage or all of these. For example, bottles of cyclopentolate (1%) and tropicamide (1%) are a good deal mistaken for each other. Both the medicines have a red cap which indicated their common drug class (cyclopegics) but makes them step to the fore exactly identical except for their printed labels. Hospital employees often do not understand the color cryptography of caps and ignore label reading leading to medication error (Coh en, 2013, p72). Physicians too maybe responsible for nearly of these problems. Many a times handwritten prescriptions bearing illegible drug dosage or names are misread by the pharmacists because of whom a potential medication error occurs. The pen and piece of music system maybe often interpreted wrongly leading to negative impacts on the patient and awry(p) medical care. Dosage miscalculation is other fatal mistake. Dosage conversion from milligrams to milliliters etc are often mensurable wrongly and the patient receives improper dose of medicine. Patients often take wrong medicines by themselves. This is a solution of dearth of patient counseling and patient education in terms of self-medication. Medication errors are sometimes a product of system errors. The drug dispensing process veracious from medicine prescription to drug language is often not clearly defines and are not continuous. It is often seen that confines, pharmacist and other employees engage in non-importan t talks preventing them from focusing on the job at hand. Hospital environmental too play a minor role in medication errors, for example noise level, distractions, poor lighting etc are often the reasons due to which caregivers make mistakes. The most important factor for system based medication error is miss of knowledge and appropriate exposure. Today, medication administration safety is the top priority of any medical institution. thence several strategies have been employed to minimize the possibility of medication errors worldwide. Several studies have proved that practise of technological advancements can helps reduce medication errors (Kaushal et al,2001) One of the most widely used technologies today is the leave out coded medication administration. A bar code is attached to each patients wrist and the she-goat responsible for drug administration scans the wrist of the patient before drug administration to ensure the right medicine, dosage and patient. The system has th e potential to point out errors in medication, medication administration route, dosage measure or patient identity (Koppel et al 2008, p 420) The use of Bar code technology helps nurse practitioners avoid common mistakes and efficiently administer the drug. Personal Digital assistant technology is yet another advancement that can help nurses prevent medication administration errors. The device displays the patient details digitally at one time and increases efficiency of service. CPOE or Computer Physicians Order entry is