Medical Errors as the Health Care Problem/Issue Nurses are on the front lines of providing care to patients and, for various reasons, are more likely to make medication errors than other healthcare providers. Because of this, nurses must make medication safety a significant concern; after all, prescribing medications makes up approximately 40 percent of the average nurse's workday. Some of the causes of this issue will be discussed here. Elements of the Issue/Problem No one is flawless, and mistakes are often unavoidable, but the repercussions can be severe in the healthcare industry. Prescription mistakes account for the vast majority of all pharmaceutical mishaps. This problem has been mitigated in recent years because computerized systems take doctors' orders and transmit them to the pharmacy (Yusuff et al., 2021). However, this is not the sole root cause of medication errors; pharmaceuticals with similar acronyms, diversions, exhaustion, and hazardous caregiver-patient ratios owing to low staffing also play a role. A couple of medical blunders happened a few years ago at the facility. First, a float nurse was found guilty of negligent homicide for killing a patient by giving them an incorrect dosage of drugs. After a computerized prescription machine failed to provide Versed, Vaught used multiple precedences to obtain the prescription drugs, but she accidentally gave Vecuronium instead; The patient experienced heart failure, was later declared brain dead and taken off life support, and finally passed away ("Former Tennessee nurse RaDonda Vaught found guilty in woman's death after accidentally injecting her with the wrong drug," 2022). Due to hospital policy, the nurse had to use the skipped to get any pills or fluids for Vaught; thus, she ignored the
3 machine's warnings thinking they were unnecessary. Another time, during surgery, Doctor accidentally left an injection syringe inside one of his patients. This story has additional information, but I include it to show that distraction is just one factor in this analysis and that clinic and institution systems also play a role. The nurse shortage, strain, and pressure that have persisted over the past few years due to other factors only intensified due to the pandemic. The legal community will feel the effects of this decision for quite some time. Analysis One of the most considerable problems in modern medicine is inappropriate practitioner- patient ratios caused by inadequate staffing in high-stress settings (Godshall & Riehl, 2018). Since I work in a jail health clinic rather than a hospital, I have never encountered pharmaceutical errors there. My error was to administer the wrong dosage of medication to a patient. Two drugs packages were delivered from the pharmacy's premises to our medical room; when I went to pick them up, I instinctively took the first one without even looking; I verified that it had the patient's full name and age, but I forgot to double-check the appropriate the dosage in the system; and consequently, the client received a lower dosage than the prescription was initially specified, a smaller amount meant to be a loading dose. Because of how upsetting this was, I now verified the dosage, prescription, and patient data several times before opening the drug package. The likelihood of making a mistake with a patient's medication can be increased or decreased depending on several circumstances. By raising awareness of these issues, the nursing profession can reduce the prevalence of errors related to pharmaceutical use. The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a report titled "Medication without the Harm, WHO Global Patient
4 Safety Challenge" to address the worldwide issue of pharmaceutical errors. It urged measures to be taken to lower the number of patients harmed by dangerous drug procedures and medication mistakes (Medication without Harm, n.d.). To address injury caused by pharmaceutical errors or unsafe practices owing to gaps in healthcare systems, we need "global action and devotion to minimizing serious unnecessary adverse effects from medications by a half in the coming five years." Errors in medical care occur when doctors or other medical staff members fail to diagnose or treat a patient properly. These mistakes are on the rise in all types of acute care facilities. They can devastate patients by delaying diagnosis, leading to inappropriate treatment, or even death. Communication failures, faulty systems, unsafe working conditions, and understaffing are all major contributors to medical mistakes. Ineffective verbal, written, or digital communication between medical personnel leads to communication failures (Escrivá Gracia et al., 2019). Errors can also be caused by problems in the system, such as when there are too many tasks to be done, too few resources, or insufficient oversight. When normal safety procedures
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