Medication Errors
Health care organizations are facing many obstacles as changes are taking place in the
way nursing staff must care for patients.
... [Show More] Patient care is more based off of patient satisfaction
survey’s and providing enough documentation in the unfortunate chance they are taken to court.
As nurses are spending more time on the computer documenting than at the bedside, patient
safety can be decreased.
As a nurse I have seen medication errors with patients. I have seen providers prescribe
medications patients are allergic to. It is then the pharmacist and the nurse’s job to notice the
error and contact the provider. However, this conversation does not always end well. I have seen
nurses not do the math correctly when drawing up medications and then having to contact the
provider about their mistake. Although these situations could end badly, I had my own
experience with a medication error which has developed a passion on the importance of
medication safety. I was in the emergency room for severe abdominal pain. Morphine was listed
under my allergies list in my electronic medical record from a previous surgery where it was
found morphine causes me to stop breathing completely. The nurse went to the doctor to get me
some pain medication. The doctor put an order in for morphine, the nurse drew up the Morphine
came in my room and just told me she was giving me something for pain. As a certified nursing
assistant that previously worked in this emergency department, I had trust in this nurse and did
not ask what she was giving me. Next thing I knew, I woke up with eight nursing personnel and
doctors around me. I was given Narcan to counteract the Morphine. Had the doctor looked at my
allergy list, he would not have prescribed Morphine. Also, had the nurse checked my allergies,
asked if I had an allergy to Morphine, scanned my armband and the medication, she would have
been flagged in the computer system not to administer the medication.
Downloaded by Simon Kamau ([email protected])
lOMoARcPSD|25111999
MEDICATION ERRORS 3
Academic Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
While using Capella University Library’s journal search, I searched for peer-reviewed
articles through the database ProQuest. I used the following keywords; medication errors,
patient safety and medication administration errors. I used the advanced search to limit the
articles to those published within the last five years.
Credibility of Journal Articles
I selected peer-reviewed journals that were published within the last five years to provide
credibility. I confirmed that the journals stated facts about patient safety and and medication
safety and solutions. I also confirmed the credentials of the authors of the journal articles.
Annotated Bibliography
Geneva: World Health Organization. (2016). Medication Errors: Technical Series on Safer
Primary Care. Retrieved from
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/252274/9789241511643-eng.pdf.
In this article, the World Health Organization (WHO) states that it is hard to determine
medication error statistics as there are varying definitions of a medication error.
Medication errors consist of; adverse drug reactions, drug-drug interactions, lack of
efficiency and patient incompliance. WHO states there are many categories of causes of
medication errors. These causes according to WHO that involve healthcare professionals
are; inadequate knowledge of the patient, drug or perception of risk, overworked or
fatigued health care workers, poor communication between health care professionals and
the patient, distractions, insufficient resources. Other factors that can cause medication
errors are similar names of medications, and repetitive systems. The repetitive systems
cause health care professionals to go through the motions which eventually [Show Less]