Running head: MEDICATION ERRORS & WAYS TO INTERVENE/PREVENT THEM 1

Medication Errors & Ways to Intervene/Prevent Them

Marielle Briones

University of South Florida

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Medication Errors and Ways to Intervene/Prevent Them

Medication errors are blunders that occur which have the potential to cause harm to the

individual patient or multiple patients depending on the type of error. One research article

describes them as “one of the most common type of adverse events that occur” in the hospital and

can influence factors such as “prolonged hospital stay[s], mortality rate[s] and increased costs”

(Hurkens, 2017). There are many kinds of medications errors. This paper will not only go through

one kind, but I will also be discussing a medication error that I fear I may fall victim into making.

Interventions and prevention techniques will be examined for both.

Medication Error #1: Wrong Medication for the Wrong Patient

One crucial medication error is giving incorrect medications that were meant for a different

patient. Detrimental consequences can occur especially if the meds have an adverse/severe effect

on individuals. The main intervention is the emphasis on the 5 rights as well as the triple check.

Both of these concepts stress the importance of checking to make sure the medication that has been

pulled from the med room and is about to be given is meant for that particular patient and no one

else. Although this issue is easily preventable, nurses can still make these type of medication

mistakes, especially if they’re either in a rush or they aren’t paying attention. Hopefully, “bar code-

assisted administration systems” can even help in this situation (Wittich, 2014). When the nurse

scans the patients arm band, the system should notify the nurse of the wrong medications when he

or she tries to scan them afterwards. Nurses are now required to ask the patient for at least two

identifiers, such as their name and date of birth, when the arm band is scanned as an additive safety

measure.
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Medication Error #2: Interruptions (My Personal Concern)

Although I fear making any type of medication error, due to heightened risk of causing

harm to patients, one specific error I worry I may commit is not handling interruptions during prep

for med administration well. There have been a few times during my clinicals where the nurses I

followed where little interruptions would occur as they are trying to pass medications to their

patients. Although these disruptions can be small, it can cause added stress if the nurse is already

pressed for time to deliver meds. In general, it takes time for me to reorient myself from certain

disturbances and could be potential for medication error if I forgot what prep work hasn’t been

completed. One way that I could try and prevent this problem is my decreasing the amount of

distractions/interruptions that can occur before the med administration process starts. Examples of

this would be closing the patient’s door, answering questions that the patient or family has, or

asking PCT’s to help with other patients while I’m administering meds.

I think one major way I can try to prevent this is making lists that comprise of important

things that should be done prior to giving the medicine (like checking blood pressure before giving

a diuretic) or listing items I would need such as alcohol swabs so that I wouldn’t accidentally forget

and have to go back to the med room to get them. These lists will help me during my first year.

I’m hoping that overtime, these things will become almost second nature to me so that even if I

get interrupted by something or someone, it won’t take me long to retrace my steps.

In Conclusion, there are various kinds of medications errors that can happen. However, if

the nurse as well as others in the healthcare system are thorough and precautious with these meds,

the number of incidents resulting from med errors can drastically decrease. It is important for

nursing students to start thinking about ways they would prevent errors from occurring.
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References

Hurkens, K, et al. (2017). Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a computer assisted

medication review in hospitalized patient. International Journal of Hospital Pharmacy.

0001-0012. http://escipub.com/Articles/IJHP/IJHP-2017-10-0101

Wittich, C, et al. (2014). Medication Errors: An Overview for Clinicals. Mayo Clinic

Proceedings. Vol 89. 1116–1125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2014.05.007