Preview

Medication Errors Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
676 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Medication Errors Essay
Medication Errors are the leading issues debated in the health care setting in America. Whenever medications were administered, nurses must follow the five basic rights: Right patient, Right medication, Right route, Right dose, and Right time. Believed it or not medication errors still seek to exist. However, most common errors are occurring related to poor transcriptions, drug interactions, drug name confuses, and poor documentation. One of the greatest concerns with medication errors is order transcription. Poor transcriptions that were passed from doctors to RN could cause serious damage or life threating situation by giving the patient the wrong amount of therapeutic doses or mistakenly gave patient the wrong name of drug. The problem here …show more content…
I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I was astounded because I just had my annually visit with my doctor a week prior, he told me everything looks well. I also told him that I have recently notice a lot changes physically, where I have excess hunger, excess thirst and excess urination, which now when I’m in nursing school I recognized those as the three cardinal signs of diabetes. My doctor told me that because I’m young and active so it very normal to experienced it. So now I’m siting in the ER thinking how could it be, I had my check up a week ago and everything is fine. After they did a complete metabolic panel and Hemoglobin A1C, the result revealed that my blood glucose at the time was 300 and my HA1C is 12 %. While I was rehydrated with IV fluid, the doctor also orders a potassium rider, because my potassium was low. Long story short, there was a miscommunication during change of shift report; I was given more potassium then my body required. I started to notice, that my whole entire body become rigid and weak, I had some tingling in my arms and feet, and acute chest pain. I rang my call bell, the nurse came in and I told her what I’m experiencing. I remembered after she took my vitals and assessment, her face was pale as a ghost, she then told me I need to call the doctor, the doctor came in the room to assess and prescribed some medications and apologized. He told me that my nurse

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Medication errors can be a result of long work shifts, inexperience staff, medical services such as an interpreter, multiple medications for a single patient, environmental factors, fatigue in doctors and nurses, dosage requirements, poor communication, distribution system error, improper drug storage, miscalculations or measurements, confusing labels or packaging of medications, poor handwriting, verbal commands, lack of authority in policies and procedures, poor overseers.…

    • 1058 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    References: Asepden, P., Wolcott, J., Palugod,R. Bastien, T. (2006) Preventing Medication Errors. Retrieved December 1, 2012 from http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2006/Preventing-Medication-Errors-Quality-Chasm-Series/medicationerrorsnew.pdf…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

     Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ). (2012). Computerized Provider Order Entry. Retrieved from…

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Kelly, William N. "Medication Errors." Professional Safety 49: 35. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. Assiniboine Community College. 22 July 2004 .…

    • 1997 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Prescription Errors

    • 1266 Words
    • 6 Pages

    “The five main categories of traditional prescribing errors are wrong patient; wrong drug; wrong dose, strength, or frequency; wrong drug formulation; and wrong quantity. Out of those main categories, the four most common errors observed were wrong drug quantity (40%), wrong duration of therapy (21%), wrong dosing directions (19%), and wrong dosage formulation (11%).” (Graham and Scudder). Some common errors of prescribing would be: wrote the prescription incorrectly, illegible handwriting leads to miscommunication, and physician error of simply choosing the incorrect medication/dosage when writing the…

    • 1266 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    medication errors

    • 251 Words
    • 2 Pages

    This article explains in great detail the errors that many pharmacists make that contribute to the medication errors in and emergency department. The leading cause of pharmacists errors are in the charting that is done prior to dispersing medication. This article shares the enormous information in regards to the ways that pharmacists could do their job differently in order to keep the number of medication errors down.…

    • 251 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Errors can occur during the different stages of drug delivery process (prescribing error, transcribing error, dispensing error, administering error and monitoring error. Each stage, is susceptible to error . .In prescribing Error, which is the error that can happen from the written medication order.Such as wrong dose, for instance, the patient who is taking chemotherapy, the dosage is computed taking into accounted an old weight so the dosage is too low, so is calculated based on an old weight , and the error happen when Carboplatin dosage is substituted for cisplatin dose in the medicine, bringing an extreme poisonous quality. Other types of prescribing errors include(wrong patient ,wrong time, wrong drug, wrong frequency and wrong rout like Intravenous vincristine is prescribed for intrathecal administration. Also there is illegible or unclear written order. For example, , a patient who is taking chemotherapy is endorsed drugs on d 1–8. This is inaccurately deciphered as implying that the medications ought to be given every day through d 1–8. The expected significance was that the medications are managed on d 1 and d .the expected significance was that the medications are managed on d 1 and…

    • 759 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Errors are an innate part of human life. Execution Safe execution of medical orders is plays a significant part role of in patient care. It is also the main component of nursing performance and has a distinguished role in patient safety. Medication errors are a healthcare professional’s worst nightmare and has become one of the biggest issues devoted encountered in today’s healthcare setting. According to the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (2016), “a medication error is any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer. Such events may be related to professional…

    • 909 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Adverse Error

    • 1065 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Medication error is a very common error happened in a hospital. It may cause mild side effect to serious side effect, which is death. According to the institute of medicine, medication errors injure at least 1.5 million people every year and result in billions of dollars in extra medical costs. The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention defines a medication error as any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer. Such events may be related to professional practice, health care products, procedures, and systems, including prescribing; order communication; product labeling, packaging, and nomenclature; compounding; dispensing; distribution; administration; education; monitoring; and use. For this case scenario, it is related to procedure, system and communication.…

    • 1065 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Each year in the United States there are just over 450,000 reported medication errors, they are the sixth leading cause of death, as well as costing the health care industry roughly 3.8 billion dollars (Flanders & Clark, 2010). QSEN’s published mission statement is to, “Address the challenge of preparing future nurses who will have the knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSAs) necessary to continuously improve the quality and safety of the healthcare systems within which they work.” (2016). QSEN has seen the devastating effects that medication errors have had on the nursing profession and are continuously publishing refined guidance and evidence based best practices to better prevent…

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A medication error is any avoidable event that may cause or lead to untimely medication use or patient harm; however, while the medication is still in control of the health care administer (Brock, 2006). 80 percent of the most severe medical errors can be interrelated communication between clinicians, primarily in handoffs. For example, a handoff is a medical error if information regarding an essential diagnostic test is not communicated carefully and properly between providers at shift change (Starme, 2015). However, the end result could be a detrimentally harmful delay in patient care.…

    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Safe Medication Error

    • 270 Words
    • 2 Pages

    As a result of the literature and analysis, I learned that safe medication administration is one of the most important skills that a nurse can have. If a medication error occurs, it can have many ethical, social, economic and safety ramifications. The research presented has also allowed me to see that medication errors are more likely to occur in certain situations, such as a hectic and distracting workplace. The literature suggests that I should do the best that I can to avoid such situations by finding a quiet space and taking my time to attentively go over the required medications to prevent error.…

    • 270 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The United States has some of the best healthcare in the world. Research and advances in technology have created a very reliable system for Americans to have optimal health. Despite all these positive qualities, the U.S health care program is suffering from a severe epidemic. Lately, patients have not followed the directions given to take prescription medications that were provided by their healthcare provider. This is known as medication nonadherence.…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Medication errors occur often in the nursing field. “A medication error is defined as a failure in the treatment process that leads to, or has the potential to lead to, harm to the patient.” [(Aronson, Medication Errors.)] Nurses make unfortunate mistakes everyday . “According to a April 7 report in Health Affairs, medical errors now cost our over-burdened health care system over $17.1 billion dollars a year; the cost of avoidable hospital readmissions adds another $13 to $18 billion dollars a year.” [(Reducing the Cost.)] It is important to reach out to a supervisor immediately so that mistakes can be fixed if possible. This article was interesting because a study was done between experienced registered nurses and bachelor degree nursing…

    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Among patient safety concerns, medication administration errors are preventable. For the purpose of this study, an medication error will be defined as any preventable event or deviation from the physician’s order that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medicine is in the control of the nurse (National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCCMERP), 2010). The definition was adopted from the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention and altered to include, any deviation from the physician’s orders, to allow for error to be…

    • 1090 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays