The Application of Research Skills on the Problem of Medication Errors
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The acknowledgement of human error as an important factor contributing to avoidable sickness and mortality by the healthcare sector paved the path for technology to become one of the most life-saving discoveries ever. The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) role in this cannot be contested. The IOM report, To Err Is Human, caused the change of heart. It was discovered that close to one hundred thousand avoidable fatalities were happening in healthcare facilities as a result of human mistake (Bates & Singh, 2018). This annotated bibliography’s practice topic of concern, medication mishaps, falls squarely within this category. The purpose of this paper is to present an annotated bibliography of four current peer-reviewed articles on medication errors.
Problem Summary, Personal Interest, and Professional Experience with the Issue
Every healthcare facility is concerned about improving quality in relation to medication administration errors or MAEs. It has long been recognized that medication administration errors made by nurses have a major negative impact on morbidity and death. Research by the likes of Simiyu et al. (2018) has revealed that at about half of the time every day, wrong time administration of medications by nurses occurs. Then the second most common error is documentation of the medication given about a third of the time all day. Last is the error of wrong technique that happens about 28% of the time.
The fact that MAE repercussions are so severe is what piqued my curiosity in the aforementioned subject. Therefore, I am curious about practical ways to prevent MAEs. In my professional life, I have repeatedly encountered MAEs as a result of colleagues’ and even my own forgetting to give a patient their medication on time.
The Database Search Strategy Employed
To find data supporting preventive measures against MAEs, a search of the following databases was carried out: Scopus, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Cochrane, and CINAHL. Among the key words and phrases utilized in the search were “errors,” “medication administration,” “prevention,” and “nurses.” These were combined with the Boolean “AND” operator before being entered into the search engines of the pertinent databases. 951 items in all were discovered. There were 15 full-text articles left after abstracts and unclear articles were filtered out and removed. Below is a list of four of these with annotated bibliographies. Since they were all published in journals that underwent peer review, they are all reliable. Since they are all current and were all published within the last five years, they are also highly pertinent.
The Annotated Bibliography
Wondmieneh, A., Alemu, W., Tadele, N., & Demis, A. (2020). Medication administration errors and contributing factors among nurses: A cross sectional study in tertiary hospitals, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. BMC Nursing, 19 (4), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-020-0397-0
In tertiary care institutions in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, the aim of this study was to evaluate the severity and contributing variables of errors in medication administration among nurses. The article was chosen because it specifically tackles the practice issue of MAEs among nurses. In this cross-sectional study, 298 randomly chosen nurses worked as nurses. The survey received 298 responses from nurses, or 98.3%. Of these, 203 (68.1%) acknowledged making errors in medicine administration in the previous twelve-month period preceding the study Applying Library Research Skills – NHS4000: Developing a Health Care Perspective.
Poor instruction, a lack of the administration of medicines recommendations, a dearth of professional experience, disruptions during the administration of medications, and late-night hours were all significant predictors of medication administration errors in this study. It may be necessary to retain experienced nursing staff, offer ongoing training on how to safely administer medications, make a medication administration guideline available for nurses to use, and create an environment that supports safe medication administration in order to improve the standard and safety of medication administration.
Weingart, S.N., Zhang, L., Sweeney, M., & Hassett, M. (2018). Chemotherapy medication errors. The Lancet Oncology, 19 (4), e191–e199. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(18)30094-9
The article’s goal is to provide information on the prevalence of pharmaceutical errors related to chemotherapy and suggest ways to avoid them. This article was chosen because it clearly addresses the practice problem that was selected, which is the justification. Even though chemotherapy is a well-established treatment option, mistakes can result in a significant risk of patient harm. The scientists examined published studies from 1980 to 2017 in order to appreciate the extent and type of medication errors in cancer chemotherapy and to find effective solutions to help minimize mistakes.
Chemotherapy errors arise at all stages of the medication usage process, impacting at least one to three percent of adult and pediatric oncology patients, and occurring at a rate of one to four per one thousand orders. One area where risk is increasing is the use of oral chemotherapy. Despite the fact that several of them seem to lessen chemotherapeutic errors, the bulk of therapies have little empirical support. More study is needed to understand and lower the incidence of chemotherapy drug mistakes.
Simiyu, K.N., El-Banna, H.M., Fattah, M.A., & Omondi, L.A. (2018). Nurses’ medication administration errors at medical surgical units. American Journal of Nursing Science, 7 (3), 88-99. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajns.20180703.12
The goal of the study was to evaluate medication administration mistakes made by nurses in general medical and surgical units. The main reason the article was chosen is that it discusses research done on MAEs by nurses working in medical-surgical units. Using stratified random sampling with the medical and surgical units as the strata, 100 nurses were proportionately selected for the descriptive cross-sectional study. The study included a total of 200 observations by adding two more observations of each nurse while dispensing medication. Two different technologies were used to obtain the data for the current inquiry.
The interviewer provided a questionnaire about medicine delivery errors as well as a disguised drug administration observation checklist. Data was collected over a period of four months and subsequently analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics to seek for correlations between variables. The study’s findings revealed that, respectively, 27%, 23%, and 15% of the nurses who took part in it admitted to giving medication at the wrong time, at the wrong rate, or after getting a written order to stop. Nurses must recognize the prevalence of MAEs as a patient safety indicator in order to comprehend and prevent MAEs through rationalized drug management policies and guidelines.
Koyama, A.K., Maddox, C-S.S., Li, L., Bucknall, T., & Westbrook, J.I. (2019). Effectiveness of double checking to reduce medication administration errors: A systematic review. BMJ Quality & Safety, 29 (7), 1-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2019-009552
The study’s goal was to perform a systematic assessment of research that evaluated the evidence for the value of double checking in lowering MAEs. Because the paper focuses specifically on MAEs and their prevention, it was picked. Five databases were searched for studies examining the use and effectiveness of double checking on reducing medication delivery errors in a hospital setting.
A collection of thirteen research investigations were looked at, and it was found that double-checking adherence rates varied from 52% to 97% of administrations. The claim that a lower incidence of MAEs or less harm results from double versus single medication administration checks is not sufficiently supported by the available data. More research is required to demonstrate whether double checking actually improves patient safety to the point where the large costs required are justified.
Conclusion
The aforementioned annotated bibliography amply demonstrates that MAEs currently pose a concern to patient protection. Since nurses are the ones who deliver pharmaceuticals, evidence-based quality improvement activities aimed at them are required. The numerous recommendations for prevention that are backed up by literary evidence are the four sources analyzed in this annotated bibliography’s main contribution.
References
Bates, D.W., & Singh, H. (2018). Two decades since To Err Is Human : An assessment of progress and emerging priorities in patient safety. Health Affairs, 37 (11), 1736-1743.
https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2018.0738
Koyama, A.K., Maddox, C-S.S., Li, L., Bucknall, T., & Westbrook, J.I. (2019). Effectiveness of double checking to reduce medication administration errors: A systematic review. BMJ Quality & Safety, 29 (7), 1-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2019-009552
Simiyu, K.N., El-Banna, H.M., Fattah, M.A., & Omondi, L.A. (2018). Nurses’ medication administration errors at medical surgical units. American Journal of Nursing Science, 7 (3), 88-99. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajns.20180703.12
Weingart, S.N., Zhang, L., Sweeney, M., & Hassett, M. (2018). Chemotherapy medication errors. The Lancet Oncology, 19 (4), e191–e199. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(18)30094-9
Wondmieneh, A., Alemu, W., Tadele, N., & Demis, A. (2020). Medication administration errors and contributing factors among nurses: A cross sectional study in tertiary hospitals, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. BMC Nursing, 19 (4), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-020-0397-0
Applying Library Research Skills – NHS4000: Developing a Health Care Perspective
Create a 2-4 page annotated bibliography and summary based on your research related to best practices addressing one of the health care problems or issues in the Assessment Topic Areas media piece faced by a health care organization that is of interest to you.
Introduction
In your professional life, you will need to find credible evidence to support your decisions and your plans of action. You will want to keep abreast of best practices to help your organization adapt to the ever-changing health care environment. Being adept at research will help you find the information you need. For this assessment, you will review the Assessment Topic Areas media piece and select one of the health care problems or issues to research, which will be a current health care problem or issue faced by a health care organization that is of interest to you.
Instructions
Note: The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. At a minimum, be sure to address each point. In addition, you are encouraged to review the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.
For this assessment, research best practices related to a current health care problem. Your selected problem or issue will be utilized again in Assessment 4. To explore your chosen topic, you should use the first two steps of the Socratic Problem-Solving Approach to aid your critical thinking.
View the Assessment Topic Areas media piece and select one of the health care problems or issues in the media piece to research. Write a brief overview of the selected topic. In your overview:
Summarize the health care problem or issue.
Describe your interest in the topic.
Describe any professional experience you have with this topic.
Identify peer-reviewed articles relevant to health care issue or problem.
Conduct a search for scholarly or academic peer-reviewed literature related to the topic and describe the criteria you used to search for articles, including the names of the databases you used. You will select four current scholarly or academic peer-reviewed journal articles published during the past 3–5 years that relate to your topic.
Refer to the NHS-FPX4000: Developing a Health Care Perspective Library Guide to help you locate appropriate references.
Use keywords related to the health care problem or issue you are researching to select relevant articles.
Assess the credibility and explain relevance of the information sources you find.
Determine if the source is from an academic peer-reviewed journal.
Determine if the publication is current Applying Library Research Skills – NHS4000: Developing a Health Care Perspective.
Determine if information in the academic peer-reviewed journal article is still relevant.
Analyze academic peer-reviewed journal articles using the annotated bibliography organizational format. Provide rationale for inclusion of each selected article. The purpose of an annotated bibliography is to document a list of references along with key information about each one. The detail about the reference is the annotation. Developing this annotated bibliography will create a foundation of knowledge about the selected topic. In your annotated bibliography:
Identify the purpose of the article.
Summarize the information.
Provide rationale for inclusion of each article.
Include the conclusions and findings of the article.
Write your annotated bibliography in a paragraph form. The annotated bibliography should be approximately 150 words (1–3 paragraphs) in length.
List the full reference for the source in APA format (author, date, title, publisher, et cetera) and use APA format for the annotated bibliography.
Make sure the references are listed in alphabetical order, are double-spaced, and use hanging indents.
Summarize what you have learned from developing an annotated bibliography.
Summarize what you learned from your research in a separate paragraph or two at the end of the paper.
List the main points you learned from your research Applying Library Research Skills – NHS4000: Developing a Health Care Perspective.
Summarize the main contributions of the sources you chose and how they enhanced your knowledge about the topic.
Example Assessment: You may use the following to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like:
Assessment 2 Example [PDF].
Additional Requirements
Your assessment should also meet the following requirements:
Length: 2–4 typed, double-spaced pages, not including the title page and reference page.
Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.
APA tutorial: Use the APA Style Paper Tutorial [DOCX] for guidance.
Written communication: Write clearly and logically, with correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.
Content: Provide a title page and reference page following APA style.
References: Use at least four scholarly or academic peer-reviewed journal articles.
APA format: Follow current APA guidelines for in-text citation of outside sources in the body of your paper and also on the reference page.
Competencies Measured
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:
Competency 2: Apply scholarly information through critical thinking to solve problems in the field of health care.
Assess the credibility and relevance of information sources.
Analyze academic peer-reviewed journal articles using the annotated bibliography organizational format.
Summarize what was learned from developing an annotated bibliography.
Competency 4: Write for a specific audience, in appropriate tone and style, in accordance with Capella’s writing standards.
Apply academic peer reviewed journal articles relevant to the health care problem or issue being researched.
Produce text with minimal grammatical, usage, spelling, and mechanical errors.
Integrate into text appropriate use of scholarly sources, evidence, and citation style
Applying Library Research Skills – NHS4000: Developing a Health Care Perspective
