Medication Errors Discussion

As a Nurse Practitioner, you prescribe medications for your patients.You make an error when prescribing medication to a 5 years old male patient. Rather than dosing him appropriately, you prescribe a dose suitable for adult. a) Explain the ethical and legal implications of the scenario on all stakeholders inlvoved; prescriber, pharmacist, patient and patient family. b) Describe strategies to address disclosure and nondisclosure as identified in the scenario;Be to reference laws specific to the state of New Jersey. c) Explain 2 strategies an Advance practice Nurse would use to guide his decision making in the scenario including whether you would disclose your error; be sure to justify your explanation. d) Explain the process of writing prescriptions;including strategies to minimized medication errors.

Every year, between seven and nine thousand people in the United States alone, lose their lives due to medication errors. Because of these numbers, healthcare errors are increasingly receiving more attention, despite that making these errors is not a new phenomenon (Dirik et al., 2019). A nurse is trained on the procedures that will make it less likely to make these mistakes. When these mistakes occur, several ethical issues may arise, different affecting stakeholders. These ethical issues include whether to disclose the error, harm to the patient, impact on quality care, and erosion of trust. Nurses must get support when they make the appropriate responses to medication errors. Reforming the healthcare system will help nurses lessen the chances of harm, promote patient welfare, and reduce the likelihood of medication errors such as the one described in the case (Tariq et al., 2020).Medication Errors Discussion

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Legally speaking, appropriate compensation should be provided and should include, among other things, costs associated with all healthcare and rehabilitation and losses on earning ability resulting from the error. It is also essential to conduct investigations into why the event occurred and research methodologies and best practices of ensuring it does not recur. Because it is difficult to sustain a “no blame” culture, efforts should be concentrated on creating a culture where blame is restricted to circumstances that are not morally appropriate. In addressing a medical error such as the one in question where moral culpability is low, the primary objective for both the medical and legal systems should be to promote effective and safe healthcare. The focus should be for people in positions of influence to make policy changes that promote safety in practice. Suing people who lack this authority and influence, such as the nurse in question, will only set the stage for such errors to reoccur (Tariq et al., 2020).

Landmark legislation passed in 2004 under the Patient Safety Act would create the legal duty for practitioners in New Jersey to immediately disclose a medical error to the patient the error has affected (Dirik et al., 2019). Reporting such errors, recording patient safety incidences, and recording near misses, together with their ethical aspects, should be designed to alleviate clinicians’ fear of lawsuits and their self-perceptions of incompetence. A second strategy to address disclosure and nondisclosure involves the development of Web-based and interinstitutional databases. These tools will assist nurses in improving patient safety and preventing hazards such as the one in question.

Decision-making strategies are an important step in eliminating errors. One such strategy that can be employed by advanced practice nurses to eliminate medication errors is understanding how their decision will affect both department and organization operation and patient care delivery as well as if their decision will reflect the goals of the organization. Secondly, advanced practice nurses need to use evidence-based practice in decision making while also involving stakeholders who the decision will affect. Medication Errors Discussion

According to Tong et al. (2017), best practice should be followed to minimize errors while writing prescriptions. This will involve following the same guidelines regularly until they become a habit. The guidelines in question are as follows:

1. Writing legibly
2. Checking the computer-generated script for errors.
3. Checking the dosage and its frequency
4. Confirm the route of administration
5. Consider all drug interactions and allergies.

References

Dirik, H. F., Samur, M., Seren Intepeler, S., & Hewison, A. (2019). Nurses’ identification and reporting of medication errors. Journal of clinical nursing, 28(5-6), 931-938.

Tariq, R. A., Vashisht, R., & Scherbak, Y. (2020). Medication errors. In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing.

Tong, E. Y., Roman, C. P., Mitra, B., Yip, G. S., Gibbs, H., Newnham, H. H., … & Dooley, M. J. (2017). Reducing medication errors in hospital discharge summaries: a randomized controlled trial. Medical Journal of Australia, 206(1), 36-39.Medication Errors Discussion