15 Effective Tips For Nurses To Prevent Medication Errors - Find Assignment Help
By Michael Clarke
Any job related to the health of a human is very important and serious. You need to be extra alert because even slight mistakes can harm the patient or it can lead to any serious life-threatening situation. When doctors are the most important part of treating someone well, nurses are also very important.
After the treatment, before the treatment, and even during the treatment, the role of nurses is very important. They take care of the patient from admitting, give many medications to them, keep them stable and comfortable, help the doctor during the treatment, and help the patient in the recovery process by giving the dose of medicine and taking care.
As the role of nurses demands to do all of these works, you need to be sure to check to do every task very carefully. Many nurses make a lot of mistakes, it is most common for the nurses in 1st year of work. Among all the mistakes, medication errors are very dangerous. nurses need to be very careful about this point.
You need to gather as much information as you can about the drug, before giving it to the patient. You need to know all the details about the patient also to give them the right medication. Here are some nursing tips are given below to help prevent medication errors also it's Help Nursing assignment writing.
1. Know about the drugs
This is the most common way to prevent medication errors. As you are going to treat patients and take care of them, it is very important to know about the drugs. If you don’t know about the drugs or know very little, then the chances of medication errors get high.
It might not be very easy for you to remember every medication and drugs, but if you read the drugs every day, you will learn about them in a very short time. Remember to read the drug specifications and details regularly to improve your knowledge about drugs.
2. Check the drug administration chart
One of the most common reasons for medication error is misidentifying patients. Some nurses get overconfident and give the wrong drug to the wrong patient. Mostly it happens when there are many patients with some common medication in the same ward. In these cases, you need to ask their name and give drugs accordingly.
No matter how well you know the patients, you need to check the names before administering the medication. Instead of asking the patient, you can look at the names tags to identify and check in the drug administration chart.
3. Identify and check the right drug
There are many drugs in the industry that look similar. Apart from looks, the name of the drugs might be similar, which mostly happens because of the composition of the drug. But you need to be very careful to check the name of the drugs before giving it to the patient. Giving a similar-looking drug might be life-threatening as these drugs work very differently and are used for different treatments.
Some of the examples of these drugs include Claritin and Claritin D-24, Glucotrol and Glucotrol, Anacin-3 and Anacin, Dioval and Diovan, and many more. So it is better to not rely on the looks or names and check the compositions and names carefully.
4. Drug Handbook
As the name suggests, a drug handbook is a book that contains all the information about different drugs. While you are administering medicines to patients, you can look at the handbook to know more about these drugs apart from the basic things. It will help you to know more details about the drugs.
A doctor can give different medications to patients with the same disease. With the help of this handbook, you will get to know what are the differences between the medications.
5. Communicate with pharmacist and doctors
While treating a patient, the doctors say the names of the drugs for the patient to follow. Be sure to write down the names of the drugs in a pad. You have to be ready to note them down with a pen and a pad. Without writing them down, you might forget them on your way. If you missed the name of drugs, or have doubts, then ask the doctor to repeat the name.
Instead of guessing the drug, and keeping the doubt to yourself, communicate with the doctor to know the name to be sure. Also, say the names in the pharmacy for more than 1 time to make them understand the right one.
6. Ask for help to other nurses
If you have any difficulty understanding the drugs, patients, any other things, then it is best to ask other nurses for help. It will help you to know about things and prevent making any mistakes. Also, in the initial stages, you will have difficulty identifying the drugs and patients. You can take the help of other nurses to know them correctly and prevent any errors.
7. Prioritize your work
It is very important to know how to manage your work and decide the priority. You might get multiple tasks at the same time. You will need to give priority to the critical case first, but also without neglecting the other patient. Like if a patient needs care with any with the critical case, and another patient needs their daily walk to keep the digestive system running, then you will have to choose the critical patient and assign another nurse to help the patient to take a walk.
8. Double-check the eye drops and ear drops
Every year thousands of patients come to hospitals for eye care or ear care. So these are given to patients quite regularly. As the bottle and packaging look the same, many nurses make the mistake of confusing them. Now, giving an eye drop to ear might not cause any problem but if you give an ear drop to the eye, it will cause pain and itching. So make sure to check the label of the bottle before applying it.
9. Give extra care to older patients
One of the very important and serious things that you need to remember is that older patients need more care than normal. Many older patients fall and die every year due to the negligence of the nurses. So, you need to give extra care and handle them very safely. No matter what work you have, do not rush them to move or take the stairs. Try to be as friendly with them as possible and guide through the caring process to heal them.
10. Check for allergies
While giving medication to the patients, it is your responsibility to check the patients for any allergies. There are many drugs in the market that contain some properties, which can trigger allergies. Check the form of the patient to know about the allergies, also ask the patient to be sure if there are any other allergies that they forgot to mention. If the patient mentions any new allergy, then you should inform the doctor to change it.
11. Cross-check high alert drugs
When you are giving the high alert drugs to the patient, you need to be extra careful compared to normal drugs. As the name suggests, they are very powerful and strong. A little dose of them is enough to spike the vital signs of the patient. It is always better to cross-check it before using it. Take the help of the other nurses to identify them. Some of the common high alert drugs include Opium tincture, Oxytocin, and many more.
12. Know the case file of patient
Apart from doctors, it is very important for nurses to know the case file of patients. There are many cases where a misunderstanding in handwriting affected the patient. If you know the case of a patient, then you can detect an issue like that and save the life of the patient.
For example, while Dioval is used for men to treat cancer and it helps females to increase the production of estrogen, Diovan is used for high blood pressure. Now this completely different medication can harm the patient.
13. Check the label
In many situations, you might have to transfer or store the drugs to any different place. When labeling the drugs be very careful, as writing them wrong can mix them up and it could affect the whole hospital along with patients. Be sure to write the name of brands and the generic name also for easy recognition.
14. Extended-release coating tablets
Some tablets have an extended-release coating, which helps to slowly work in the body over many doses. It increases the function of the tablet while minimizing the frequency of taking a tablet. While cutting this tablet, be careful not to cut the coating. If the coating is cut, then the tablet will start working immediately causing an overdose.
15. Make sure to check equipment
Last but not the least; clean the equipment before touching any new patient. It is very important as using the same equipment in more than one patient can cause many infections and other diseases. Along with equipment, also check yourself to avoid any medication error.
These are the 15 tips for preventing any medication error for nurses. It will also help you to learn nursing assignment skills to treat people and save lives.