Medication Errors, Essay Example

The focus of the work for this project is to determine how medication errors can be reduced in the healthcare setting at the local, state, and national level. Ultimately, medication errors are made as a consequence of a lack of knowledge or human error, so this understanding can be used to alleviate this problem (Persell et al., 2013). Many health problems can arise as a consequence of medication errors, and these mistakes have led to both injury and death in the past. Studies have shown that medication errors have contributed to the deaths of 210,000 to 440,000 patients annually (Grossman et al., 2014). Therefore, it is important for health care professionals to put forth efforts that could reduce the damage that occurs as a consequence of these errors. The purpose of this paper is to propose a solution that would be able to reduce the amount of medication errors that occur. Proposed solutions to the problem include developing enhanced training programs for health care professionals, including specialized training using electronic health record systems (Houser, 2015).

Description of Findings

A majority of the concepts that have been studied pertaining to this subject are observational studies. Each health care institution typically creates its own study in order to generate a better understanding of the health care statistics that are relevant to that facility (Houser, 2015). However, it is important to generate a more comprehensive understanding of medication errors across the board so that a widespread initiative could be developed in order to prevent these errors from happening. I therefore selected my first article “Hospital Experiences Using Electronic Health Records to Support Medication Reconciliation” because it allows the reader to determine whether available data assists the affirmation that electronic health record systems can be useful to help prevent against medication errors (Grossman et al., 2014). The method the authors used to find these results involved a retrospective study of health data from 19 local hospitals to determine the rate of medication errors prior to and following the use of electronic health record systems. These results can be considered only internally valid due to the local nature of the study, although future studies can be conducted in more diverse geographic regions to determine if these results are externally valid. In response to the purpose of the study, the authors found that the impact of electronic health record systems on medication errors vary due to factors such as vendors and evolving software technology. The next step for the group is to determine how these factors positively or negatively influence medical errors to determine how these factors can be manipulated in order to improve patient care. The group could also determine whether the information they find is externally valid by completing a more comprehensive study.

Article 2

The study entitled “A New, Evidence-based Estimate of Patient Harms Associated with Hospital Care” was selected to determine the extent of detriment that medication errors cause (James, 2013). The method used was a literature review to identify how four studies that aimed to determine the cause of medication errors can be improved in addition to how these reviews could reasonably predict the prevalence of death related to medication error. Data from more than 98,000 participants in a series of hospitals across the United States were used, indicating that this study could be said to be externally valid due to the diversified participant population. To address the purpose of the study, researchers found that more than 200,000 patients die from medication errors each year and 400,000 are harmed. The next step for this group would be to determine how this number could be reasonably reduced. The group could also aim to determine the more specific causes of medication errors as it relates to nursing practice.

Conclusion

Overall, there is strong evidence for the use of electronic health record systems to reduce medication errors. Studies have shown that different factors related to the use of electronic health record systems have the potential to increase or decrease the number of medication errors, demonstrating that it is necessary to maximize the potential of this understanding by further exploring this relationship to enhance patient safety. Furthermore, while studies have been able to somewhat accurately predict the number of deaths and injuries related to medication errors, there is an increased need to assess the accuracy of medication error statistics in addition to a breakdown of this information that allows practitioners to gain a greater understanding of their cause.

References

Grossman J.M., Gourevitch, R., Cross D.A. (2014). Hospital Experiences Using Electronic Health Records to Support Medication Reconciliation. National Institute for Health Care Reform, 17: 1-12.

Houser, J. (2015). Nursing research: Reading, using, and creating evidence (3rd ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.

James, J.T. (2013). A new, evidence-based estimate of patient harms associated with hospital care. J Patient Saf., 9(3): 122-8.

Persell, S.D., Elder, M. (2013). Health Services and Outcomes Research. JAHA, doi: 10.1161/JAHA.113.000311