Free «Medication Errors and Medication Reconciliation Increase Safety» Essay Paper

Recently, energetic efforts have been made in various countries around the world to prevent medical errors and enable medication reconciliation to increase patient safety. These efforts have always been compulsory and extremely important. It is useful to remember that relatively simple errors are identified and eliminated ensuring medication reconciliation at the same time, For instance, prevention of hospital-acquired infections, affecting 1.4 million people each year, nurses are likely to enhance safety in blood transfusions (Alenius & Graf, 2016). In general, the issue is not resolved yet. This paper touches upon the sources of medication errors and further medication reconciliation to increase safety and provides a plan to mitigate particular root causes of the problem as well as the phenomenon of medication errors as a whole. Therefore, to fight against the medication errors through medication reconciliation to increase safety, it is significant to consider various factors while implementing the quality control measures in the nursing setting.

 

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Essential Specificities of Medication Errors and Medication Reconciliation

The Problem and Ways to Improve the Situation

Taking into account the specific characteristics and causal factors of a problem is a starting point for improving the quality of healthcare, especially in light of many stakeholders involved. Herein, the doctors and nurses are to cooperate closely. Only in this case, one can state that the issue is really resolved. In order to quickly identify the root cause of the problem and improve the process of decreasing the medication errors while granting the medication reconciliation, many problem-solving medical specialists use an approach called root cause analysis. To implement this strategy, various methodologies are used. They include testing and evaluation of proposals until a final decision is made, along with involvement in the process of solving the problem those who know it best. The consideration of the problem solving process as part of the overall improvement process is significant. In the process of searching for a probable cause and reaching consensus, brainstorming, written brainstorming, the formal group method, and the pairwise comparison are used.

To develop a relevant problem-solving strategy, it should be based on the properly gathered patient data. For this purpose, one can use the method of sampling, namely,  extracting the data from large volumes of information (Alenius & Graf, 2016). Additionally, the survey, the checklist method applied for systematic information collection using the pre-prepared sheets, histogram, the Pareto diagram, and dispersion diagram can be utilized. Finally, a dependency diagram may be relevant to identify the logical relationships between different ideas or questions knitted with the problem, while affinity diagram is also helpful to detect connection between ideas and reasons. Every aspect aids to specification and reduction of the root causes of the medication errors and following medication reconciliation to increase safety in this aspect, namely, nurses and doctors’ incapacity to appropriately resolve the problems and provide high-quality care.

Medical Language as the Barrier

Similarly to any natural language, reference to medical terms does not provide the necessary accuracy of describing the complex issues. For this reason, the situation does not guarantee protection against medical errors and medication reconciliation but causes the occurrence of these phenomena (Schiff et al., 2017). In this regard, the medical language poses a serious danger to patients and it generates erroneous actions of medical staff, which can lead to death, disability or other damage to patients. Hence, nursing education should pay sufficient attention to this aspect. Along with this, it is paramount to have the quality control systems in place to observe the way in which nurses and doctors communicate using the medical terms.

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Although medical errors and medication reconciliation for ensuring patient safety depend on many factors, the medical language is one of the shortcomings, though it is often overlooked. The inappropriate medical language can have a negative and even destructive effect on the professional thinking of both nurses and doctors, and the measures taken do not almost touch upon the most difficult, intellectual part of the problem, such as drawbacks in nurses’ and doctors’ thinking (Schiff et al., 2017). In particular, medicine is extremely complex and continues to grow more complicated with each year. Rapid development of the medical knowledge and technologies makes ever-new demands for the qualification of medical personnel and medical education. As a consequence, the burden on the nurses’ and doctors’ brain is increasing, forcing them to solve increasingly complex mental problems (Altmiller, 2017). At the same time, both nurses and doctors are humans; hence, their psychophysiological characteristics and abilities are by no means limited. Hence, it is necessary to admit that the medical language does not allow healthcare professionals to see and analyze all these dangers in order to fully protect patients from medical errors and ongoing medication reconciliation to increase their safety (Altmiller, 2017). It is also necessary to acknowledge that the medical language does not cope with its duties, even though it is the main transport artery for the transfer of information and knowledge to the nurses and doctors in the learning process.

The means and methods to solve the major medication errors in light of medication reconciliation to increase patient safety have to include some more steps. First and foremost, there is an acute need in the process of reforming of the professional medical language, which comprises of the language of medical literature, textbooks, standards, guidelines, clinical recommendations, and protocols, supplementing it with a medical algorithmic language of high accuracy (Altmiller, 2017). Secondly, it is paramount to improve the form of presentation of the medical knowledge in the professional literature, eliminate inaccuracy, approximations, and incompleteness of descriptions. All these measures should be done with the help of medical algorithms of high accuracy (Altmiller, 2017). Thirdly, it is critical to change the methodology of teaching medical disciplines in institutions and the system of postgraduate education, using the proposed framework. These aspects would ensure patient-centered care and safety as primary Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) competencies (Altmiller, 2017). These two QSEN requirements are dependable on the decrease/increase of the medication errors in nursing (Altmiller, 2017). When the care is patient-centered, there is a direct way towards the patient’s safety, which is the essence of the nursing activity in general. This is due to the fact that the nurses’ task is to avoid the medication errors and create the safe conditions for the patients.

Prescriptions as the Source of Medication Errors and Ways to Overcome Them

The doctor’s prescription is an important medical document, which is to be followed by patients, nurses, and pharmacologists. The correctness of the formulation of the prescription is a reflection of the professional culture and the level of professional competence of a nurse and a doctor (Schiff et al., 2017). The problem of errors and medication reconciliation in prescribing procedure is relevant for different countries in the world. A medical worker is prone to make mistakes due to fatigue, lack of concentration, and competence among others. In various countries, measures are developed to identify and prevent errors and ensure proper medication reconciliation as a method to increase safety in prescriptions (Altmiller, 2017). The most effective way to achieve this objective is to translate them into an electronic form (Schiff et al., 2017). The system of electronic prescriptions allows to significantly reduce the medication errors and medication reconciliation in the administering treatment, writing and reading prescriptions (Schiff et al., 2017). When using electronic recipes, the problem of illegible handwriting is eliminated since the name of the medicinal product is printed in the electronic prescription.

The second direction of preventing medication errors and proper medication reconciliation to enhance patient safety, which has been caused by the prescription of a drug, is the development of computer programs to support pharmacotherapy. Such systems allow both nurses and doctors to check the correct dosage of medications, their compatibility with other medicines, and exclude unwanted side reactions (Altmiller, 2017). Thus, the standardized information system, which can be used in the healthcare system by the means of the electronic personal medical record of the patient, enables the constant monitoring of the diagnosis, the preservation of X-ray images, and the compilation of electronic prescriptions.

The social ways of reducing the number of such errors and referring to medication reconciliation for safety purposes in the provision of medical care and their prevention include certain phases. Many scientists, lawyers, doctors and representatives of civil society are trying to find effective methods of preventing the aforementioned negative phenomena caused by the improperly managed doctors’ prescriptions (Altmiller, 2017). Primarily, there should be the active interaction of clinicians and pharmacists to detect and prevent medical errors and facilitate the relevance of medication reconciliation linked to prescriptions. Secondly, the measures should include the development and implementation of the control approach in medical institutions, adjustment of their activities, and establishment of the necessary conditions for health workers in the healthcare facilities. Thirdly, the modernization of the system of insurance of the harm caused by the wrong or improper prescriptions should take place (Altmiller, 2017). Fourthly, there should be the process of strengthening of the role of ethics committees as social subjects for assessing the defects in the provision of medical care. In addition, there should be monitoring of civil society to identify attitudes to the problem that are formed in the population through the media or other sources.

There are no ready-made strategies for the prevention of the errors and medication reconciliation to increase safety of medical care prescriptions, though stakeholders’ collaboration is critical in the process. Each medical institution is a multifunctional and many-sided mechanism obliged to live according to ethical and legal norms and laws that exist in any society (Altmiller, 2017). Herein, the quality management system is a framework of a specific medical community. It permeates all spheres of its life activity. In the process of improving the quality of medical services to the public, the role of the top management of the organization is important, as manifested in its understanding of the need for continuous monitoring of processes, analysis of problems, finding ways out of the current situation, identifying corrective actions and a vector for further development of health facilities (Altmiller, 2017). Only in conditions of mutual cooperation, it is possible to achieve a positive result in reducing the errors and ways to prevent them, as well as proper use of medication reconciliation to enhance patient safety in the provision of medical care.

Conclusion

The implementation of the medication errors prevention program in light of medication reconciliation to increase clients’ safety in the field of health care is to improve the quality of medical care in general. Trying to address the challenge, nurses would ensure practicing the patient-centered care and safety as two QSEN competencies. The goal can be achieved through making adjustments in the medical language use, using technologies in prescribing processes, as well as interprofessional collaboration among other issues.