Analysing healthcare issues - Medication errors

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[...] What solutions exist? Some include enhancing education, adopting high-quality electronic health records, and advancing safety. Most medication errors are often attributed to factors involving human errors, such as care provider's fatigue, distractions, and lack of knowledge; system-related issues, such as inefficient workflows and processes, ambiguous policies, and inadequate access to various resources; communication-related problems; and technological factors, where healthcare givers depend on old or defective equipment (Manias et al., 2020). Medication errors exist in different places where healthcare services are delivered, such as hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and long-term care facilities. [...]

[...] References Manias, E., Kusljic, S., & Wu, A. (2020). Interventions to reduce medication errors in adult medical and surgical settings: a systematic review. Therapeutic advances in drug safety, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2042098620968309 Wondmieneh, A., Alemu, W., Tadele, N., & Demis, A. (2020). Medication administration errors and contributing factors among nurses: a cross-sectional study in tertiary hospitals, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. BMC Nursing, 19, 1-9. [...]

[...] Implementing Technology Solutions: Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems contain features that generate alerts using information about possible errors and successfully implement the barcode technology in medication administration. Fostering a Safety Culture: Promoting information sharing of errors without retaliation and creating structures that define how mishaps should be dealt with. These solutions would require funding for technology, professional commitment to training, and a change in attitude toward safety. Effective leadership and a multidisciplinary approach are also needed (Wondmieneh et al., 2020). [...]

[...] For instance, in the scienti?c Journal of Patient Safety, barcodes proved bene?cence and nonmale?cence by reducing medication errors by 50%. Studies conducted by the Institute of Medicine emphasized that patient participation in decisions regarding the care process enhanced the practice of autonomy and the establishment of trust (Wondmienehet al., 2020). This involves notifying the stakeholders about the changes affecting them, providing all the necessary practices to help reduce disruptions, and conducting fair and efficient evaluations of resource use. Conclusion Conclusively, medication errors are one of the significant challenges in the healthcare delivery system, hence demanding urgent and continuous intervention. [...]

[...] Analysing healthcare issues - Medication errors Introduction Medication errors are defined as any events that may result in the wrong use of medications or harm to the patient, where an individual can prevent harm. Such mistakes happen at the different phases of the medication cascade, ranging from prescription, dispensation, administration, and monitoring. Some of these mistakes include the wrong prescription of the correct dosage, mixing up different drugs with similar names, and forgetting to consider how the drugs might interact. [...]