Medication Error Stories That Made Headlines

Medication Error Stories That Made Headlines

A medication error is defined as "any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the healthcare professional, patient, or consumer,” according to the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention.

Any work involving a person's health is crucial and significant. Due to the fact that even minor errors could endanger the patient's life, you must exercise extreme caution. Nurses are essential when doctors are the primary caregivers in a patient's care.

Nurses have a critical role throughout the treatment process and before, during, and after. They look after the patient from admission, administer various medications, maintain their stability and comfort assist the doctor with therapy, and support the patient's recovery by administering medication and providing care.

You must check to do each assignment very carefully because a nurse's job requires you to do all of this. Most mistakes made by nurses occur during their first year of employment. Unfortunately, medication blunders are among the most harmful of all errors. Nurses must approach this point with extreme caution.

Before administering medication to a patient, it is essential to learn as much as possible about it. You must be fully aware of the patient's medical history to provide the proper medication. To help prevent prescription errors, some nursing advice is provided below, and it also provides Nursing Assignment Help.

What are Medication Errors?

Here are some examples of drug errors you should know about:

Not being aware of the expiration dates

Even though expiry dates are written on bottles or labelling, many patients overlook them. Patients ignorant of their prescriptions' expiry dates may unwittingly expose themselves to health and efficacy issues.

Using the wrong dosage

According to the report, individuals are more likely to stop taking their medications when more are added to a regime, even though it may be relatively easy to remember particular prescriptions for one prescription pill. This may be more common in older adults with many comorbid conditions requiring medication.

Usage frequency

States are now developing numerous programmes to stop people from using prescription medications at an improper rate as a result of the opioid epidemic. Some individuals with opioid use problems may visit many physicians for prescriptions or steal them from relatives and friends.

Combining drugs without physician guidance

Doctors should be aware of these supplements because many patients take vitamins, and there could be adverse side effects. According to the report, some prescription medications frequently interact poorly with over-the-counter allergy and heartburn medications. Additionally, some nutrients or medicines may interact negatively with birth control pills, making them less efficient as contraception.

Tips to Prevent Medication Errors

You must ensure that you double-check to do each assignment very carefully because the job of a nurse requires you to do all of this. Most mistakes made by nurses occur during their first year of work. Medication mistakes are among the most harmful of all errors. Nurses must handle this point with extreme caution.

Before administering medication to a patient, you should learn as much as you can about it. You must be fully aware of the patient's medical history to provide the proper medication. Here are a few nursing hints that can be used in writing Nursing Assignment Help just to ensure reducing medication blunders.

Know about the drugs

Knowing about the medications is crucial if you're going to care for and treat patients. Medication errors are more likely to occur if you understand little or absolutely nothing about the drugs.

Even though it could be difficult to recall every drug and medication, if you read about them every day, you will quickly become familiar with them. To increase your understanding of medications, frequently read the medicine specifications and specifics.

Ask for help from other nurses

Ask other doctors for assistance if you have trouble comprehending the medications, patients, or anything else. You can avoid mistakes by being informed and learning about things. Additionally, you will first have difficulty discerning between the medications and patients. To appropriately identify them and prevent any mistakes, you might seek the help of other nurses.

Prioritise your work 

Knowing how to prioritise your tasks and oversee your workload is crucial. Several jobs could be assigned to you simultaneously. Prioritise the urgent case first, but don't forget the other patient. For instance, if a patient requires care for a serious condition while another patient requires a stroll to maintain a healthy digestive system, you must choose the severe patient and designate a caregiver to assist them in taking their daily walk.

Double-Check the Eye and Ear drops

Thousands of patients visit hospitals annually for ear or eye care. As a result, patients receive these quite frequently. Many nurses misidentify the bottles and containers because they are similar-looking. Applying an eye drop to the ear may not result in any issues, but applying an ear drop to an eye will hurt and itch. So, before using the bottle, be sure to read the label.

Give extra care to older patients

Older individuals require more care than usual is one of the highly critical and crucial things you need to keep in mind. Due to the nurses' incompetence, several older adults fall and pass away each year. You must therefore handle them carefully and with additional care. Do not push them to move or take the stairs, no matter how much work you have. Make every attempt to be as amiable as you can while guiding them through the process of healing.

Check the drug administration chart

Patient identification errors are among the most frequent causes of drug errors. Overconfident nurses can administer the incorrect medication to the wrong person. The majority of the time, it occurs in wards where there are numerous people on a similar drug. When this happens, you must inquire about their name before administering medication.

Regardless of how well you know these patients, you should always double-check their names before giving them medication. You can identify and check the medicine administration record by looking at the name tags rather than contacting the patient.

Identify and check the right drug

There are numerous medications in the market that resemble one another. Aside from appearance, the names of the drugs may be identical, which most often occurs due to the makeup of the substance. Nevertheless, you must be extremely careful to double-check the drug's name before administering it to the patient. Providing a medicine that looks identical but works substantially differently and is employed for a differential treatment could be fatal.

These medications include, among others, Anacin-3 and Anacin, Glucotrol and Glucotrol, 0.6 - 0.9 and 0.6 - 0.9 D-24, Diovan and Diovan, and numerous others. Therefore, it is best to carefully examine the composition and titles rather than relying solely on looks or names.

Drug Handbook

As the title suggests, a drug guidebook is a book with all the details regarding various substances. You can consult the manual when giving medications to patients to learn more about the medicines beyond the fundamentals. You will gain more excellent knowledge about the medications as a result.

Patients who have the same condition may receive different drugs from their doctor. You will learn about the distinctions between medicines with this guide.

By rethinking packaging and doing away with dose preparations in care settings. Moreover, by streamlining medication rounds, medication errors—particularly drug administration errors—can be significantly minimised.

By leveraging these easy tips for reducing medication errors, you can simply ask for Nursing Assignment Help.