Medical Errors (Article Sample)

Medication Errors
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Medication Error
The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention defines a medication error as any preventable event that leads to inappropriate medication use or leads to patient harm when the medication controls the caregiver, consumer, or the patient (Ferrah et al., 2017). Medication errors can lead to a severe problem for the patient, although they are very often since professionals are cautious with the matter. In the United States, cases are reported every year. Approximately 100,000 reports are received each year by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) associated with a medication error (Sulistiadi et al., 2020). Through the use of root cause analysis, it is easier to know the cause of the error. The severe medication results error includes death, life-threatening situation. This essay focuses on the different strategies to eliminate medical errors, the proposal and justification for such strategies, and the interprofessional consideration involved in the strategies.
However, the errors can occur at any stage of treatment process. Besides, kids are at high risk because they need different doses than adults. Therefore, knowing what you are up against can help a lot in preventing medication errors. Common causes of medication errors in a hospital setting include Poor communication between the professionals or between the patient and the doctor. The confusion is caused by inadequate labeling of medication; for example, a drug name that same like name of other drugs or medications that look alike are wrongly labeled, and medical abbreviations.
Regarding the poor communication among providers, the error may be caused by the ineffective closed-loop communication, failure to establish clear lines of responsibility, and information lost in the transition of care (Kiymaz, & Koç, 2018). The table below shows the current outcomes for medication errors, their change strategies, and expected outcomes.
Current outcomes

Change strategies

Expected outcomes

Administering the wrong dose is a common medication error in a hospital setting
* Poor communication of the providers might lead to providing the wrong medication.
* b) Some providers may have work incompetence leading to ignorance and administer drugs without checking the prescription report.
* c) Some drugs have very similar names, and the provider may label the wrong drug with the wrong name leading or administer them to the wrong patient
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They ensure that providers stick to the prescribed dosage for age, weight, medical condition, and medical history.
* Nurses and doctors should ensure proper communication between them
* The management should monitor the care workers for any misdiagnosis and sue them for incompetence.
* Providers should read the labels or the boxes carefully to avoid causing severe damage to the patient when provided the wrong do

Professionals provide the right dosage to prevent complications that may result in death and thus preventing medication errors.
* The collaboration of the providers to ensure good communication in prescribing the medication.
* The caregivers will work their level best to ensure they provide safe and quality healthcare.
* Pharmacists, doctors, and nurses will be careful in labeling and naming medication, more so the ones that look alike.

Proposal and Justification
The first proposed strategy of the medication mentioned above error is creating a condition that is likely to administer the right dosage. However, conditions like cross-checking, avoiding destruction, labeling drugs clearly, and using bar codes (identifiers) such as “Tall Man” lettering where there is mixing uppercase and lower case in the same word are essential. This method is useful to avoid misreading of labels. Picking up a medication containing diazepam, for example, may lead to picking unintended medication to contain diltiazem from a pharmacy shelf. This error can be prevented by adequately labeling the medications, checklists and computerized reminders, and fail-safe systems.
The second proposed strategy is based on knowledge-based errors. For example, the nurse may give penicillin without checking without the patient is allergic (Asensi-Vicente et al., 2018). This problem is caused by staff communication problems and the difficulty accessing the right drug information leading to prescription errors. However, this error is preventable by being well informed about the medication prescribed and the patient taking the drug. In this case, education is essential. The nurse may also use computerized prescribing systems, cross-checking by pharmacists and other nurses, or barcoded medication for the systems.
The last strategy is based on unethical behaviors in the workplace. Providers should report their colleagues who endanger the life of the patient. If a health care worker provides the wrong medication out of ignorance and the patient is seriously injured, should report to the authority and action taken immediately. The administration and management should recruit health workers who are well trained and aim to provide safe and quality care to the patient. 
Quality Improvement through Change Strategies
The fundamental step in improving the change strategies mentioned above for medication safety is advising the health care providers and the physicians to be familiar with the available medications. However, in the improvement of safety, they should consider the following:
* Understand the diagnosis, patient conditions, and indicators for the medications such as alternative therapies
* Maintain current references of the medications and the reference available when the physician prescribed the medication. (Bolandianbafghi et al., 2017)
* The nurse should consider conditions associated with medication efficiencies such as patient weight, dosages, renal and hepatic functioning, administration route, and other characteristics such as pregnancy.
* Understand the relationship between the medication already being used by the patient and the newly prescribed medications. This includes the supplements and prescribed medications.
Another improvement is in the verbal medication orders. They should be limited to urgent situations. The medication should be followed by the readback of the individual receiving the order to ensure accuracy. The doctor should be careful when prescribing me