based on milestone 3 (attached) text book reaidng Chapter 11: pages 390–411The AssignmentConsidering the nursing issue for your Course Project, address the following:Provide a brief summary of your

Assignment Criteria

Answers:

(NOTE: See Milestone 3 Rubric for details required in each area.)

Brief Statement of Nursing Care Issue

25 points

The suggested nursing care issue that will be addressed here is medication errors. Medication errors have led to the loss of life and liabilities for the healthcare organizations. There is an increase in medical errors in the healthcare sector which has elevated the mortality rate significantly yet it can be avoided through implementing certain measures. Research on medical errors shows that approximately 69.4% have made medical errors that include infusion rate and wrong dosage to patients. Medication errors have become so serious in healthcare that the government has taken the initiative of fostering quality improvement and training of the caregivers. The main cause of medication errors is the failure to observe hygiene and established treatment procedures when handling patients.

I: Intervention to Improve Quality of This Nursing Care Issue

50 points

The issue of medical errors among nurses ought to be avoided to prevent the deaths of patients. The nurses ought to take the step of reporting cases of medication errors and this is possible if the nurses are provided with a blame-free environment. Nurses should work towards providing balanced prescriptions to the patients. Moreover, the records of patients should be properly recorded and maintained for easy retrieval to promote the provision of the right medication to patients. There is also the need for the patients to be handled with care by the caregivers. The caregivers ought to ensure that proper hygiene is upheld throughout the process of patient treatment. Implementation and adherence to the quality improvements laws also ought to be there in every healthcare facility.

I: Professional Article to Support Intervention

50 points

Authors: ZR Wolf, R Hicks.

Publication Year: 2006

Article Title: Medication Errors.

Journal Name: Journal of Professional Nursing.

Volume Number: 032

Issue Number: 011

Page Numbers: 03, 07

DOI (if available): 10.1097/nan.0000000000000178

I: Article Summary

50 points

According to the article, a medication error is an event that is preventable that can cause harm to patients while the medication is in full control of a healthcare professional like a nurse or a doctor. The occurrence of medication errors is when there is an improper prescription of dosage to a patient or wrong administering of the medicine. Medical errors cause harmful and unpleasant reactions in the body of a patient.

According to Wolf and Hicks, In spite of the adverse effects on patients due to medical errors, there are few reported cases of medication errors. The nurses fear to report the cases because of the existence of a blame game within the nurses. Therefore a non-blame environment ought to be created to encourage the nurses to report the cases of medication errors.

According to Wolf and Hicks, there are other causes of medication errors apart from the ones listed above. First, there is the poor communication between the patients and healthcare professionals which leads to wrong treatment thus causing death. Medication errors also occur due to lack of up to date information within all the firms in the healthcare industry.

Evaluation/ control

Medication errors can be controlled through various measures. First, the nurses must be keen while prescribing drugs to the patient to provide the right treatment. A non-punitive environment should be created to encourage reporting of cases of medical errors by nurses. Finally, there should proper recording of patients’ records to easily know the right drug to be administered to a particular patient. There is also the need to adhere to the document of informed consent as this is crucial in preventing medication errors. The guidelines established by the nursing and physician agencies regarding response to the needs of the patients and handling them should be followed to the letter.