The occurrence of medication administration errors hinders effective attainment of quality and safe patient care and outcomes. Medication administration errors are significant safety issue in health care sector, especially when there are different crises affecting healthcare and quality outcomes. The susceptibility of patients to medication administration errors increase with reduced number of healthcare workers against an increase in demand for services due to several factors. Medication administration errors (MAEs) increase the length of stay for critically ill patients and cost of care.
Studies demonstrate that leveraging health information technologies that include barcode scanning and other interventions can reduce and prevent the occurrence of these events, especially among the critically ill patients. The purpose of this literature review is to offer a comparison of the articles that supports the evidence-based practice project of using health information technology to reduce the occurrence of medication administration errors among the critically ill patients. The review also identifies the methods used to search the literature and synthesizes it for effective understanding and use for the selected eight articles.
There is no question that nurses are on the frontline of healthcare on multiple levels. In the arena of pregnancy and postpartum care, nurses play a vital role in not only the assessment of mother and baby’s physical well-being, but mental and emotional well-being as well. Recent studies show that women who are at an increased risk for developing postpartum depression (PPD) can be identified prior to delivery and prior to developing the disorder (Mughal et al., 2022). Quite naturally, nurses are at in the perfect position to identify these women that may be at risk, recommend treatment or support, and maintain follow-up care. Currently, there are screening questionnaires such as the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) that are commonly completed by women post-delivery, often during the newborn well-check appointments.
The use of health information technology can reduce and prevent the prevalence of medication administration errors (MAEs) among critically ill patients. The use of interventions like barcode scanning and electronic dispensation ensures that human errors that occur during medication dispensation are reduced or minimized, especially the critically-ill patients in different health settings.
Among the critically ill patients (P), does the integration of health information technology (I) compared to conventional medication administration process (C), lead to a reduction in medication administration errors (O) during patient’s stay (T)?
Effective search of articles comprises of using appropriate approaches and terms that align with the topic of interest. In this assignment, I employed different yet related strategies to search for the articles that support the EBP project. These included using institutional library to get databases of journals and their published peer-reviewed articles. I used terms like “peer review” and “scholarly works” about medication administration errors. Through these approaches, I obtained the articles that I used in providing this literature review as they support my EBP project. I also ensured that the article meet the criteria of being published within the last five years and are relevant to the nursing context and use.
The first article is by Alotaibi and Federico (2012) who discuss the impacts of health information technology on patient safety. Through a review of present scientific evidence on the effects of health information technologies on improving patient safety, the authors demonstrate the effectiveness of these interventions in reducing medication administration errors. Their findings support the implementation of health information technology to reduce medication errors and mitigate adverse events while increasing compliance to established guidelines in nursing practice. The article supports the PICOT as it shows the interventions that can be used to improve quality care and enhance overall patient safety. The article also supports the PICOT by showing the time frame that facilities can use to attain the benefits of these interventions.
The second article by Barakat and Franklin (2020) focuses on the effects of using barcode medication administration (BCMA) on nursing practice activity and workflow. The authors
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