Medication Errors: Annotated Bibliography Health, Medicine Paper (Annotated Bibliography Sample)

Medication Errors: Annotated Bibliography
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Medication Errors: Annotated Bibliography
Medication errors are failures in the treatment process that cause harm or injury to the patient related to their use of a drug. Medication errors are a common cause of preventable harm to patients and increase the financial burden on a health institution (Scott, 2016). Medication errors arise from wrongful prescription, lack of administrative protocols, inadequate patient instruction, or failure to address allergies and known contraindications (Burlingame, 2018). Although all health care professionals can commit medication errors, nurses are especially prone to medication errors in the administration and patient education phases of drug use.
As a nurse, I chose medication error as the topic for my annotated bibliography to inform future practice and reduce the likelihood of committing medication errors. The medication error health care problem interests me because nurses can greatly reduce its occurrence in health care settings. The possibility of causing preventable harm to a patient informs my focus on medication error as the healthcare issue I would like to address. Having worked with patients who use several drugs concurrently, I feel that learning more about medication errors can instill confidence in my capability to handle such cases in the future.
Literature Search Criteria
I found peer-reviewed journal articles based on their relevance to medication error management using the University's library database. I used the search terms "medication error management", "medication safety", and "nursing medication error". Additionally, I filtered the results by discipline to retain nursing articles, and by publication date to retain articles published within the last five years. Finally, I selected the four articles I felt would provide the most information on preventing medication error after reading the abstracts of all articles that satisfied the search parameters.
Article Relevance and Credibility Evaluation Criteria
All articles that satisfied the search criteria were published in peer-reviewed journals, which ensures their credibility because their findings and claims pass accuracy reviews by panels of nursing experts. I checked article relevance using publication date and article abstracts. I found that all the four articles I chose provided valuable information on medication error management.
Annotated Bibliography
Burlingame, B. L. (2018). Guideline implementation: Medication safety. AORN Journal, 107(4), 476–487. https://doi.org/10.1002/aorn.12095
Burlingame's article focuses on preventing medication error in the perioperative phases, from prescription to the transition of the patient to home care. The article focuses on strategies delineated in the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) Guideline for medication safety. The AORN document emphasizes precaution at all stages of the perioperative process. Burlingame focuses on four phases, namely the prescription phase, administration phase, patient education phase, and transitions of care phase. The guidelines require specific precautions such as designating a healthcare professional to oversee information transfer to the receiving caregiver in transitions of care and to conduct complete education of the patient and caregiver before discharge. Burlingame also demonstrates how the same guidelines apply to other areas of the healthcare center. This article highlights the need for precaution at all stages of the patient's exposure to medication, from prescription to administration and aftercare, hence its inclusion in the annotated bibliography.