Determining the Credibility of Evidence and Resources
Introduction
The healthcare sector has the primary role of ensuring that patients’ care is appropriate, best-quality, and safe. Patients’ needs keep changing, thus demanding newer approaches to their management to ensure that the patient’s right to quality and safe care is not compromised. Besides, various challenges undermine quality care and safe care, thereby further compromising their right to such care. Due to the increasing and changing patients’ needs, healthcare professionals should equip themselves with the adequate knowledge and skills crucial in caring for the various needs of the patients. It is pretty common for the newly graduated from lacking sufficient knowledge required in caring for the patients, thus challenging them to acquire adequate knowledge necessary in caring for the patients continuously.
Quality or Safety Issue
As a nurse offering care services to the patients, I have been into certain circumstances where I nearly compromised the safety of patients because of a medication error. One of my colleagues had administered the medication but failed to document it afterward. Unknowingly, I nearly administered similar medication to the same patient. I have also heard my colleagues frequently talking about near misses while administering medications. Cases of medication errors have been on the rise despite various strategies to address them. They mainly occur during the final stage, which is medication administration. Statistics indicate that a significant number of individuals develop complications, incur other costs, and at times, die because of cases of medication errors (World Health Organization, 2016). Various factors contribute to such errors, which are categorized into nurse-based, knowledge-based, and management-based. Each of these factors contributes significantly to occurrences of medication errors, associated with increased fatalities and poor health outcomes of the patients.
It is, therefore, a significant concern, and every healthcare provider should have adequate knowledge regarding these medication errors. These include; the various causes of medication errors, the role nurses play towards contributing to these errors, the impacts these errors have on the outcome of the patient, and lastly, the various strategies which can be put in place to reduce and prevent cases of medication errors to ensure better health outcomes of the patients (World Health Organization, 2016). Addressing this concern requires an adequately developed system to ensure that the care providers have access to reliable information that does not relay inaccurate information concerning the topic. This can be misleading, thus ineffective in addressing the issue. Some experienced care providers should mentor the new ones and inform them of the necessary information they need to know regarding the matter.
Criteria that should be Considered when Determining Credibility of Resources
The health profession involves a continuous process of learning. Care providers are challenged with new conditions daily, which they have to expand their knowledge about. These sources of such information should meet specific criteria. It is helpful as it will ensure that the information obtained isn’t misleading and will benefit the nurse in addressing the issue or concern. Therefore, the evaluation of such information is essential in determining the most appropriate and relevant to use (Keshavarz et al., 2020). The first criterion to apply is that of timeliness. It is crucial as it ensures that such sources contain the most recent information regarding the topic. It is helpful because professionals keep doing research and coming up with new information. Thus the latest publications will include the latest information crucial for the subject.
Secondly, these resources are very critical as they help manage the lives of people. Therefore, the authors of these articles should be certified, after all meeting the required criteria and standards, and given both legal and professional authority to write regarding a particular topic. This enhances the reliability and accuracy of such information, thereby preventing cases where one gets misled after reading data from an irrelevant author (Keshavarz et al., 2020). Using a well-recognized database with a good reputation relating to the particular topic under discussion is also essential. These criteria help prevent incidences of misleading information and ensure that the information obtained is relevant and significant in addressing the specific issue.
Analysis of the Credibility and Relevance of Evidence and Resources within the Context of a Quality or Safety Issue.
Credible resources help produce meaningful information regarding this issue of great concern (Keshavarz et al., 2020). The
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