NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3 Improvement Plan Example

Safe Medication Administration Improvement Plan Sample Paper

Outline

  • Introduction
  • Purpose and goals of an in service session related to safe medication administration
  • Need and process of the safety improvement plan
  • Audience roles & importance of the safety improvement plan
  • Resources and activities to encourage skill development
  • Conclusion
  • References

NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3 Improvement Plan Example

Introduction

  • Medication errors (ME) complicate patient care
  • Definition: Any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the healthcare professional, patient, or consumer (Tariq et al., 2021)
  • Frequent in healthcare; however, cases are underreported
  • In the United States, 7,000 to 9,000 people die due to ME (Tariq et al., 2021)
  • The total cost of looking after patients with medication-associated errors exceeds $40 billion each year, with over 7 million patients affected (Tariq et al., 2021)
  • Besides monetary cost,  patients experience psychological and physical pain and suffering
  • Interventions to address ME are requisite; In service training program discussed

Purpose and Goals

  • Encourage the acquisition of knowledge and the application of skills that affect the safety of patients during medication administration. NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3 Improvement Plan Example
  • Increase staff confidence in medication administration and care delivery.
  • To provide a safe and nonthreatening environment for staff nurses to practice medication administration skills prior to a real patient event.
  • Teach nurses how to recognize MEs and how to act in the event of a ME.
  • Teach nurses about the various evidence-based ME prevention strategies.
  • To promote collaborative practice while emphasizing the impact on n effective ME reporting system.

Need and Process to improve Safety Outcomes

Need
  • Why a medication error safety improvement plan is needed
  • ME cause patient morbidity and mortality (seen in the epidemiology in slide 3)
  • Errors negatively affect reputation of a healthcare facility and lead to high institutional  and governmental costs
  • Prevention is therefore necessary to avoid the ramifications
Process
  • A multidisciplinary team involved: Physicians,  nurses, pharmacists, patients
  • Process includes (Rodziewicz et al., 2018)
  • Allocating specific time for prescriptions to minimize distractions
  • Elimination of handwritten prescriptions through EHR use
  • Names of medications with similar names as listed in the US Pharmacopeia
  • Metric or apothecary measures
  • Consultations and double-checking
  • Establishing an effective ME reporting system

Audience Roles and Importance of the Safety Improvement Plan

Audience Roles
  • Audience participation through
  • Active listening
  • Asking and answering questions
  • Airing concerns
  • Engaging in simulations and other interactive sessions
Importance
  • Patients benefit from improved outcomes
  • Patient benefits directly from increased individualized attention to medications and the role they play in his or her daily life.
  • Reduced ME enable physicians to dedicate more time to the diagnostic and treatment selection process, enabling them to be more efficient
  • Health plans, employers, and payers benefit tremendously when they pay only for medications that are safe, appropriate, and effective for the patient

Resources/Activities to promote Skill Development

  • Simulation
  • Audiovisual media
  • Unfolding case studies
  • Reflections

Conclusion

  • Morbidity and mortality resulting from ME necessitates interventions to address it
  • Education and creation of awareness on ME is one contrivance to reduce occurrences
  • Can be achieved through in service training programs
  • The audience (nurses) and patients all benefit
  • Simulation, audiovisual media, case studies are among the strategies to enhance audience participation and develop their skills

References

Harder, N. (2018). The value of simulation in health care: The obvious, the tangential, and the obscure. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 15, 73–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecns.2017.12.004

Korb-Savoldelli, V., Boussadi, A., Durieux, P., & Sabatier, B. (2018). Prevalence of computerized physician order entry systems-related medication prescription errors: A systematic review. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 111, 112–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2017.12.022

Rodziewicz, T. L., Houseman, B., & Hipskind, J. E. (2021). Medical error reduction and prevention. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499956/

Tariq, R. A., Vashisht, R., Sinha, A., & Scherbak, Y. (2021). Medication dispensing errors and prevention. In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519065/

Also Read: NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 2 Root-Cause Analysis and Safety Improvement Plan