Medication Without Harm: Safe Utilization of Medication & Upgrade Practices of Nurses

Abstract

Background: As per the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention. medication error is stated as "any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the healthcare professional, patient, or consumer,”- Aim: Improving overall clinical care, Improve awareness of medication process, Reduction in medication administration error Methodology An descriptive study done on 575 nurses using direct observation, chart review, checklist and audit tool through purposive sampling technique after taking formal permission from research review board of institute and competent authority Result: there is a significant reduction of 5% in administration error and 12% improvement of awareness in nurses related to the medication administration process. Conclusion: it is highly evident in clinical settings various factors related to nurses and the culture or work environment of the institute contributed towards the errors related to medications and put patient safety questionable. Conditions like nursing workloads, improper patient acuity, poor staff manpower management, distraction and interruptions while the medication administration procedure, blame culture, the complexity of drugs calculation and dilutions, administration methodology, failure of nurses to adhere to guidelines, ineffective communication, negligence and malpractices are preventable actions points to address the rising concern of the study. Thus, it's a high demand in the current situations for nurses to gain advanced competency in the management of the medication process hence preventing medication errors and contributing to patient safety in healthcare settings.