Every healthcare organization continually works on various measures that they can use to prevent medication errors. Some of the evidence-based strategies to reduce medication errors, especially relating to medication administration, include but are not limited to the adoption of technology, bedside shift reporting, patient education, improving documentation in writing, and medication reconciliation. Adverse events from medication errors are too costly to the healthcare system and the patient. Treating adverse events due to medication increases the medical costs due to unintended patient harm and can cost the patient their lives.
The adoption of technology improves medication prescription and decision-making. According to Rosenthal & Burchum (2020), using technology reduces medication errors by 50%. The use of technology systems such as computerized physician order entry and computerized clinical decision support systems ensures that reduces errors of reception while the use of barcoded technology that identifies the drugs’ barcodes and against the patient information reduces errors of administration by up to 85% in some institutions (Rosenthal & Burchum, 2020). Therefore, technology can play a crucial role in the prevention of medication errors in the whole continuum of patient treatment.
Medication reconciliation is the process of comparing and updating the patient’s old and new medication lists. Medication reconciliation can be carried out at all care transitions, including inter-institutional transfer, admission, and discharge during shift reporting. About 60% of errors are reduced when medication reconciliation at all points of care transition. Bedside shift reporting offers an excellent opportunity for medication reconciliation during care transitions.
The Institute for Safe Medical Practices (ISMP) recommends using brand and generic names of medication during a prescription to ensure that during administration, the nurse is sure and less likely to make medication errors. The joint commission (TJC) banned the use of some abbreviations in prescriptions to reduce the chances of confusion during medication administration.
Improving documentation includes reserving verbal prescriptions for emergencies only. Documentation using electronic means ensures good communication between nurses, dispenses of medication, and prescribers of the medications. On the other hand, patient medication requires developing strong collaborative relationships that improve compliance with prescriptions to reduce the chances of medication errors (MacDowell et al., 2021). Education improves their understanding of the need for compliance and the potential side effects of overdose and toxicity.
Nursing care is the center for care coordination in any healthcare institution. During care coordination, nurses organize patient care activities and share pertinent information with care stakeholders to ensure care effectiveness, safety, and quality (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2018). Care coordination aims at meeting patient care needs thus, the nurse needs to identify all patient needs and ensure they are met by the care providers. Some of the care coordination strategies that the nurse would employ include interprofessional collaboration and medication management.
For example, during interprofessional collaboration, the nurse can help with care transition, assess patient needs, and share all relevant information. The shared relevant information would be used to develop patient medication lists with a low risk of drug interaction and adverse events such as allergies. During care coordination, the nurse should also conduct medication reconciliation at every point of change in patient care providers. These two strategies would increase patient safety relating to medication administration.
The nursing care coordination must account for all relevant stakeholders of patient care. These stakeholders can be patient-specific and may not apply to all patient cases. Some of the key stakeholders that the nurse has to coordinate with include but are not limited to patient physicians, informaticists, pharmacists, patient caregivers, and the patient themselves. This coordination requires constant, timely communication and collaboration (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2018).
Collaboration with the patient or their caregivers would be important in safety monitoring and improving
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