Introduction
A pharmacist ensures that patients are safe, particularly in the management of medicines within a community health clinic. More often than not, however, one life-threatening issue has been arising: medication errors due to poorly designed labels and packages. Such errors typically result in life-threatening consequences for a patient in the form of incorrect dosage, unpleasant reactions, and even a decrease in the overall treatment efficacy (Cohen, 2007). This way, much will be achieved in bettering patient conditions and building trust in healthcare provision. By so doing, therefore, write an assignment that seeks to elicit views from a physician or a nurse about the set problem, find out their challenges, and work in collaboration to come up with workable solutions. This is upon the call to establish the root causes and utilize evidence-based strategies upon what will better the precision and safety of the administration of drugs in the clinic (Vredenburgh & Zackowitz, 2008). It is, therefore, obligatory to collaborate to inculcate a safer and much reliable environment in health care.
Interviewee Selection and Background
I interviewed Dr. Jane Thompson who has been practicing for more than fifteen years as a physician at our community health clinic and I interviewed her through a face-to-face conversation. Dr. Thompson is aware of the clinic’s work and has witnessed numerous cases of medication errors with her own eyes. She has provided a very useful viewpoint in assessing the root of such mistakes and the right approach to them. Being a practicing physician, the roles and responsibilities of Dr. Thompson entail not only prescription of the drugs but also the supervision of the management and care of the patients, thus making her perception useful in medication safety (Berman, 2004).
Some of the daily challenges as narrated by Dr. Thompson include the problem of labeling and packaging of the medications that causes confusion to the patients and the staff. Her case shows that communication should be clear and any products that are similar should be named differently. Therefore, during this interview, it will be possible to identify some of the issues and align our activities in order to enhance the safety of medications in our clinic. Analyzing Dr. Thompson’s case, his specialization and patient centered approach allow to define the existing issues and potential improvements in the process of medication management (Fewster-Thuente & Velsor-Friedrich, 2008). They will be of great help in the formulation of strategies to prevent and reduce medication errors and improve on patient care.
Identifying Medication Errors
Dr. Jane Thompson listed many medication errors she encountered because of inadequate labeling and packaging. One of the main reasons is the same color and design of the packages; the pharmacist may mistakenly serve it. For instance, some drugs have the same color and design packaging, which causes confusion between the patients and the doctors (Lockhart & Paine, 1996). Dr. Thompson remarked that even with minor names of medications differing, an error became pretty significant in a busy clinical environment where decisions often have to be made very quickly.
Another common mistake is the unclearly labeled or non-labeled medicines. Most of the time, such critical information that is supposed to be on the dosage, expiring date, or any patient-specific information is omitted or not put into emphasis. This lack of clarity means that patients may take the wrong dose or out-of-date drugs, which is compromising their treatment. Dr. Thompson gave an example, substantiating the need for multilingual labeling in a community clinic in which to ensure all patients understand their prescription instructions in a transparent manner.
She also underscored that technology had also managed to play its part in augmenting and abating errors in medication. While EHRs could reduce errors because all the information about a patient will be stored online, not being used accordingly, or not integrated into the clinic’s work process, frequently became an issue of erroneous entries and miscommunications about the information entered among the staff. On the other end, with regard to the use of EHRs, while electronic health information systems could reduce errors. Dr. Thompson believes that the issue is being addressed through various strategies, such as better labeling standards, improved packaging practices, and better use of technology to ensure accurate medication dispensing and administration, among others (Measuring Medication Errors, 2015).
Analysis of Medication Labeling and Packaging Issues
Medication labeling and packaging problems have some critical issues in contributing to medication error
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