Effects of Medication Errors in Clinical Practice, Essay Example

Medication errors in clinical practice represents a serious set of challenges for clinical professionals, particularly when these errors pose a risk to patients and impact the quality of patient care that is received. This is an important reminder of the need to minimize errors in clinical practice to achieve the intended outcomes. It is important for nurses and other professionals to recognize a need for change in how medication administration is managed in cases where these errors are common and to address areas where the practice environment might improve as a result of changes to routine methods to manage these events (Pham et.al, 2012). In this context, professionals must be able to recognize areas where medication errors may be common and aim to present a unique strategy to accommodate patients and to be effective in meeting patient care needs through improvements in transparency in reporting errors and in other areas (James, 2013). Nurses must be able to recognize the value of these strategies in developing an effective approach to support successful patient care and treatment that will have a positive and lasting impact on patient recovery and quality of life (James, 2013).

Potential Economic Impact of Strategies

Medical errors may contribute to the development of significant economic challenges for healthcare organizations, particularly as organizations strive to be successful in advancing organizational barriers to reporting of these errors and other issues that may have a lasting economic influence on patient care quality (Hartnell, MacKinnon, Sketris, & Fleming, 2012). These factors represent an opportunity to examine the different areas whereby medication errors may contribute to additional expenses for patients and for insurance providers, thereby creating a difficult battle to minimize cost consumption in healthcare practice settings that impact patient care (Hartnell et.al, 2012). The costs of healthcare are significant and represent a difficult battle for organizations when medication errors occur frequently (Hartnell et.al, 2012). These factors require organizations to evaluate their current practice methods and to be effective in making changes that may have a lasting economic impact and that will provide improved quality of care for patients who rely on high quality care and treatment that includes an error-free medication strategy (Hartnell et.al, 2012).

Improving Health Care Quality

Health care quality requires organizations and employees to examine their core strengths and to be effective in addressing the common factors that impact quality of care, including the risk of medication errors (Smith, Guiliano, & Starkowski, 2011). In this context, organizations must be effective in managing outcomes and in determining how to best approach patient care with the utmost level of support and professionalism that will have a lasting impact on outcomes (Smith et.al, 2011). This includes the proper reporting of any medication errors that occur and the development of a strategy that will have a lasting impact on patient care quality (Smith et.al, 2011). Patients must serve as the critical priority in these endeavors and must reflect an important focus on quality and error-free medication administration on a continuous basis (Smith et.al, 2011). These factors represent an opportunity for healthcare organizations to evaluate their current strategies and to be effective in meeting the needs of their patients through activities that support an increase in quality and in paying closer attention to medication administration events so that these errors do not occur (Smith et.al, 2011). For patients requiring medications, there must be a series of strategies in place that will have a positive impact on the quality of care that is administered in patient care settings and that supports the continued growth of evidence-based strategies that will be successful in improving the quality of life of patients and in supporting a practice environment that embraces change as necessary.

References

Hartnell, N., MacKinnon, N., Sketris, I., & Fleming, M. (2012). Identifying, understanding and overcoming barriers to medication error reporting in hospitals: a focus group study. BMJ quality & safety, 21(5), 361-368.

James, J. T. (2013). A new, evidence-based estimate of patient harms associated with hospital care. Journal of patient safety, 9(3), 122-128.

Pham, J. C., Aswani, M. S., Rosen, M., Lee, H., Huddle, M., Weeks, K., & Pronovost, P. J. (2012). Reducing medical errors and adverse events. Annual review of medicine, 63, 447-463.

Smith, M., Giuliano, M. R., & Starkowski, M. P. (2011). In Connecticut: improving patient medication management in primary care. Health Affairs,30(4), 646-654.