The article will focus on reducing medication errors and the various causes of medication errors. Mainly, reducing medication errors gets associated with patient safety improvement, which is a major topic in the country. Medication error refers to a preventable event that may cause inappropriate medication use or patient harm. At the same time, the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer. Notably, drugs can save lives but can also affect a patient and the entire health care system. According to past research, medication errors attribute it to the negligence of the health care provider. Reducing medication errors requires analyzing the causes to develop effective healthcare policies and guidelines.
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REDUCING MEDICATION ERRORS AND AVOIDING MEDICATION ERRORS
The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists has developed new guidelines for avoiding medication errors by pharmacists and hospitals. The guidelines provided involve best-practice recommendations for health care providers and hospitals countrywide. Moreover, the guidelines set to focus on areas where medication errors have higher chances of occurring. The areas include patient admission, administration, monitoring, and patient discharge. Also, the guidelines call for obtaining a prescription history from patients and conducting reconciliation. Recommendations for avoiding administration errors include checking patient allergies and consulting with patients on product indications. Moreover, as the patient gets discharged, the guidelines recommend giving a questionnaire with open-ended questions. The essay will highlight guidelines in reducing medication errors and the causes of medication errors.
CAUSES OF MEDICATIONS ERRORS AND COMMON HEALTH PROBLEMS
Research on the causes of medication errors showed that tiredness due to increased workload was a major cause. For nursing students, the causes of error in medication were drug calculation. Nevertheless, the best way to prevent errors in medication is to minimize the pressure at work and increase the personnel. Moreover, creating a unit as a medication calculation can help nursing students avoid medication errors. Nurse managers need to deal with the human resource problem and provide in-service education on medication preparation. Furthermore, they need to provide electronic medication cards as a measure to minimize the errors. Reducing medication errors is important in enhancing medical care, and new healthcare guidelines can minimize the causes of such errors.
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