Question

Case Study, Chapter 3, Medication Administration and the Nursing Process of Drug Therapy The nurse is working at a long-term care facility and has been appointed to serve on a new committee. The purpose of the committee is to improve medication safety in the facility. Currently, the medication orders are handwritten in each client's chart. The orders are then sent to the pharmacy via fax. The nurses copy the medication orders by hand onto the medication administration record (MAR). The facility does not use bar coding or computer-generated MARs. Medications are supplied from the pharmacy in ulk rather than in unit dose 1. Discuss the potential for medication errors in the current system. What 2. Develop suggested solutions for each of the process issues identified. What 3. What would be the potential advantages and disadvantages of implementing a processes are in place that could make medication errors more likely to occur? additional suggestions for improving medication safety can the nurse identify? bar-coding system in this facility? O The medicathion dose and paten+ denity can be mistaken on paper Medication can be gwen o the atent ie you cl ont pay attnton

Answer 1

1. The medication errors are the very significant issue in the healthcare system during the therapy of the patients especially in case of the potent drugs. If there is medication error it may cause the serious dose related toxicity.

There may be various processes responsible for the medication errors

• It may be due to the misinterpretations of the orders by the physician
• It may be also due to the miscalculations during the order filling
• It may be due to the misadministration of the medication by the nurse.

2. Hence by the making the proper communication whether verbal or nonverbal communication the process of misinterpretations could be handled

Further the process of the miscalculations can be minimized by using the computer based software for the dosing calculations and the dose calculations should be based on the body weight, age, sex as well as BMI of the patient

Moreover the misadministration can be minimized by taking the use of the applicators for the dosing

3. In last the potential advantage of the bar coding system in reducing the medication errors as the once the bar is scanned the system tells the nurse about the all details of the product. Then the software advises the safe medication details to the nurses.

and the disadvantages of bar coding system in the medication errors as the bar-coding system fails in the case of the unit dose dispensing as well as it reduces the nursing productivity