Wrong Medication Issue and Solution in Nursing
Student’s Name
Name of the Course
Professor’s Name
Name of the School
City and State
Date
Literature Review of Wrong Medication and its Solutions
Health care professionals are likely to commit medical errors when they are inexperienced, inattentive, worn out or distracted when prescribing and administering medications. World Health Organization (2016) notes that patients also make medication error due to deficiency in knowledge concerning dosages and side effects of medications. The business of formulation prescribing drugs, administering and monitoring its course and consequences associated with the drug need careful monitoring since they are not straight forward processes (World Health Organization 2016). The significant causes of medication errors are due to prescribing faults, where the medical professional fails to determine the right drug and how to use it. The other error occurs when the professional fails in writing processes and end up writing the wrong instructions about one or more features of prescription such as time and amount of dose (World Health Organization 2016). These, among others, are the causes of a medication error, many of which are preventable.
To determine the solution of medication errors, one must detect an occurrence of medication error and associate the adverse effects of the drug. According to Gorgich et al. 2016, detection of medication error occurs after chart review, computerized monitoring, using direct observation or the patient signs and symptoms of adverse effects, patient reporting, and patient monitoring. The nurse should observe the right the rules of drug administration, such as the right drug, right dose, right patient, and correct timing of the drug administration (Hayes et al. 2015). These precautions will reduce the errors that occur during the administration and monitoring of the patient.
There are recommendations to reduce the risk of medication errors, such as providing sufficient undergraduates with learning opportunities to make the medical students safe prescribers. The prescribers should be educated on taking accurate drug histories to avoid adverse effects as a result of drug interactions (Ayuk 2016). The health care professional should receive regular training about medications from experts such as pharmacists. The governments should harmonize drug administration by the introduction of integrated prescription forms and national implementation in the country. They should also develop a better monitoring system to ensure early detection of a possible medication error, thus preventing its effects (Aronson 2009). These, among others, will minimize the instances of medication errors.
References
Aronson, J.K., 2009. Medication errors: EMERGing solutions. British journal of clinical pharmacology, 67(6), p.589.
Ayuk Agbor, G., 2016. A Literature Review of Medication Errors in the United States of America.
Gorgich, E.A.C., Barfroshan, S., Ghoreishi, G. and Yaghoobi, M., 2016. Investigating the causes of medication errors and strategies to prevention of them from nurses and nursing student viewpoint. Global journal of health science, 8(8), p.220.
Hayes, C., Jackson, D., Davidson, P.M. and Power, T., 2015. Medication errors in hospitals: a literature review of disruptions to nursing practice during medication administration. Journal of clinical nursing, 24(21-22), pp.3063-3076.
World Health Organization (WHO), Medication Errors: Technical Series on Safer Primary Care. 2016 [Internet].[cited 2019 Mar 8].