Safeguards to Prevent Medication Administration Errors in The National Health Service

David Onditi

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Academic Paper from the year 2019 in the subject Health - Nursing Science - Miscellaneous, grade: A, University of Nairobi (Colle...

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Academic Paper from the year 2019 in the subject Health - Nursing Science - Miscellaneous, grade: A, University of Nairobi (College of Medicine and Applied Sciences), course: International Nursing Practice, language: English, abstract: This text deals with safeguards to prevent medication administration errors in general and the Automated Dispensing Cabinets (ACD) in particular. They are a decentralised medication distribution system that offers a computer controlled dispensing, storage as well as the tracking of medication at the care point in the patient care units. The author will also look at the benefits and challenges for the nurse, care delivery, and implications for patient care. Medication errors, particularly the administration of wrong drugs is a common error type in the health care services. However, to ensure the safety of the patients, it is important to develop a system that can verify that the right drug is delivered to the correct patient; such a system is essential and basic for ensuring the improvement of care quality and the patient safety. Although errors associated with drug identity checking - cases where the health care professionals administer the wrong drug - have been put under the same category with the errors of wrong dose, such a categorisation should be reconsidered as part of quality improvement in clinical practice. Clinical research has indicated that the implications of wrong drug errors are significantly different in terms of corrective action for the errors of wrong dose errors. Wrong drug errors entail the checking errors by the nurses and pharmacists that lead to patients nearly receiving (near misses) or receiving the wrong medication. The wrong drug errors are different from the cases of wrong dosage errors where there is a failure by the pharmacists or the nurses to ensure that the proper dosage is administered or dispensed. The wrong drug errors can lead to significant adverse effects when the psychiatrist patient receives a drug that is inappropriate for their condition. When the disorder that the patient has is not treated properly, such a patient is exposed to medication that is not only unnecessary but can also attendant adverse and side effects.