Interventions To reduce medication errors

Abstract

<p>Medication errors are the most commonly identified errors occurring in every healthcare setting costing billions of dollars per year. They have the potential to cause death to a patient or increase hospital length of stay. A root cause analysis (RCA) was conducted after a nurse was interrupted several times during the medication administration process and gave medications to the wrong patient. Also, the number of medication errors for the post-operative, medical-surgical unit had increased to nineteen over one quarter. Distractions and interruptions of nurses during the medication administration process have been identified as a relatable factor causing medication errors. The Iowa Model was used to help guide the process of implementing several evidence-based strategies. Fourteen nurses from the unit completed the medication administration error reporting survey, and 71.43% strongly agreed that nurses are interrupted to perform other duties while administering medications. The strategies for the intervention included in the multi-pronged approach to reduce interruptions during the medication administration process were staff education; medication surveys; medication administration checklist; &ldquo;Do Not Disturb&rdquo; medication signs; staff voluntarily wearing medication vest; and observers that used the tool modeled after the California Nursing Outcomes Coalition. The project focus was on registered nurses (RN) on a post-operative, medical-surgical unit who were expected to comply with the evidence-based strategies. Twenty-one medication observations were completed with 17 interruptions, and it was noted that the RNs wore the medication vests during half of the observations. The medication error rate for the unit was ten at the beginning of the project and decreased to six errors by the end of the 12 weeks</p>