Healthcare in nursing practice The essential purpose of nursing is the care of people and…
Healthcare Systems for Detecting and Preventing Medication Errors
Medicine is the most used therapy for healing patients, for prolonging life or for improving the quality of a patient’s life. There are risks associated with the taking of medicine, and many hundred thousands of people die or are injured each year in hospitals or at home from reactions to drugs, or the administering of the wrong type of drugs. The dangers from these risks are known as “drug mis-adventuring” which takes into account drug reactions and medication errors. .Medicines are the basis for almost all treatments, whether the patient is seriously sick or just suffering from regular ailments.
Since medicines are used so frequently, sometime some patients take eight different types of medicines per day for which steps must be taken to prevent or minimize medication damage by identifying weaknesses within systems and developing procedures to correct recognized deficiencies. Everyone who is involved in the administering of medication, whether it is the physician or the pharmaceutical company manufacturing it must exercise responsibility to prevent medication errors. This would increase patient safety, improve the quality of life and reduce costs. A medication error is one where any preventable event, that could be the cause of inappropriate given to a patient which could harm the patient in any way, while the medication is in the hands of the health care professional, patient or consumer
It has been established that the best solution for preventing medical errors is “building a better health system” that limits the providers of healthcare in making mistakes that result in patients dying or aggravating their suffering. Using case studies, key factors were identified that h implementation of forthcoming injury detection systems for adverse drug events. Research was conducted by using partially pre-arranged interviews. Interviews concentrated on accomplishment experiences, assessment, and usefulness and plans or maintaining balances. The researchers compared data used in different organizations for explanation and confirmation of common subjects.
The most frequent errors are guidance medication which could occur at any time, from the medication order to the taking of the medicine by the patient. Such errors should be compiled and developed into a continuous quality improvement program. Initially, the pharmacist must accept responsibility for developing and putting into practice plans to prevent medication errors through discovery and assessment. The pharmacist should assess the process of administering medication in consultation with other health care professionals. Organize procedures for identifying and following medication mistakes, describe where the error is most likely to happen such as in prescribing, dispensing, administration or in complying with orders.