Paper on Preventing Medication Errors Among Nurses

Paper on Preventing Medication Errors Among Nurses

Page 4: Reference in APA format

***Each page containing at least 3 peer-reviewed article references please.

Some health problems in today’s world including obesity, cardiovasular diseases, cancer, addiction, diabetes are accompanied with changes in life style and in turn, lead in taking drugs (Arbabisarjou, Robabi, 2015). Medication errors are the most common medical errors that can occur as inappropriate use of medicine in each one of medicine prescription stages for patients (Fontan & Maneglier, 2003; Hansen & Greene, 2006; Wolf & Hicks, 2006). Medical errors include prescribing the wrong medicine at any stage of the treatment process that is preventable (Woods & Doan-Johnson, 2002). Giving drug is one of the most important, complexes, yet most vital processes of nursing care and it needs the right knowledge and function of nurses. Medication errors can have undesirable consequences for patients such as: Increased length of hospitalization, increased costs of hospitalization, disability and distrust in the healthcare system, severe injury or even patient death (Webster & Anderson, 2002). Implementation of medication orders is an important part of the process of treatment and care of patients and it’s considered as a major component of nurse’s function, and in the meantime patient safety has a particular importance (Soozani & Bagheri, 2007). The first reports of medication errors were made in 1940 and they drew attention (Rahimi & Seyyed-Rasouli, 2004). Medication errors were classified as one of five medical error categories by (National Institute of General Medical Science) and (Institute of Medicine) (Mrayyan & Shishani, 2007). Studies have shown that almost in 44 to 98 thousand deaths due to medical errors, 7000 occurred due to medication errors. Costs resulting from medication errors were estimated between almost 6.1 to 6.5 billion dollars in United States of America (Stratton & Blegen, 2004; Grissinger & Kelly, 2005).

A study conducted by Hughes and Ortiz in 2005 showed that 30% of patients affected by medical errors will die or will be disabled for more than six months (Hughes & Ortiz, 2005). In fact, nurses and nursing students in hospitals are people who are directly associated with giving drug to patients and they are known as people who may make the most medication errors (Clifton-koeppel, 2008). So that

nurses spend 40 percent of their time on average in hospital for giving medicine to their patients (Demehin & Babalola, 2008). Today there are more than 20 thousand types of drugs in the world that all of them despite their therapeutic effects have Complications and their own instructions. So for that nurses and nursing students should have the necessary information about drugs to avoid potential dangers (Koohestani & Baghcheghi, 2008). Common medication errors in drug prescription include: making mistake in drugs concentration, not paying attention to the right time of using drug, over dosage of drug and not paying attention to the right way of using the drug (Woods & Doan-Johnson, 2002). Research has shown that the rate of medication errors by nurses and nursing students is high, however, the report of these errors by them is low (Blegen & Vaughn, 2004; Bennerm & Sheets, 2002; Kawamura, 2001). According to a study by McCarthy et al. rate of medication errors in nursing students was reported 48.5% and the most common type of medication errors was forgetting drug prescription (McCarthy & Kelly, 2000). In a study in 2004 by Balas and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania conducted on 393 nurses, it was found that during the study, 30% of nurses surveyed, reported at least one error (Balas & Scott, 2004). Things such as lack of pharmacological information, wrong medication calculations, not regarding the defined protocols, similarity in shapes and pickings of drugs, similarity in drug names and physicians bad hand writing can cause medication errors (Carlton & Blegen, 2006).

In theory all medication errors are preventable and almost a third of unwelcome drug events are preventable (Ghasemi & Valizadeh, 2009). Medication errors are multidimensional problems and for solving them we should find multilateral solutions. We can reduce the medication errors through risk management which it is a daily and continous program for dianosis and intervention. Risk mangement is a problem-centerd approach (Arbabisarjou, 2012). However determination of causes of medication errors is as the first step to prevent and control that. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the causes of medication errors and their prevention strategies from the perspective of nurses and nursing students.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource