Adverse Medical Events Related to Medication Errors

Adverse Medical Events Related to Medication Errors tudent’s Name Institutional Affiliation Course Code and Name Instructor’s Name Date Due
Adverse Medical Events Related to Medication Errors Medication errors and the associated adverse medical events are common in hospitals. During nursing placements, nursing students are highly likely to cause adverse medical events related to the nursing tasks they ought to perform. An adverse medical event risks delivering high-quality healthcare services, especially in poor hospital settings (Alhassan et al., 2019). Many medication errors lead to the occurrence of adverse drug events. A medication error is an omission or commission error that occurs at any point along the path that starts when a physician prescribes a drug and ends when a patient gets the prescribed drug (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2019). An adverse drug effect is harm caused to a patient due to exposure to the wrong medication (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2019). Alhassan et al. (2019) reported that adverse medical events cause 30% of deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, and many of these go unreported. This paper aims to analyze adverse medical events related to medication errors in hospital setups.
An Adverse Event during Nursing Placement
Medication errors are among the most common medical errors that lead to significant mortality and morbidity. Such errors are preventable and could cause patient harm or inappropriate medical usage (Dreijer et al., 2018). During professional nursing placement, a nursing student experienced an adverse drug event related to the wrong dosage during drug administration. The student administered a high intravenous anticoagulant heparin, leading to bleeding complications. They failed to safely use heparin, which needs weight-based dosing and frequent tests to monitor blood clotting (Warnock & Huang, 2020). Abnormal laboratory results detected an overdose of heparin. As a result of the high dosage administration, the patient died due to bleeding complications, hence an adverse medical event.
The Adverse Event in Other Facilities
In other facilities, medication errors related to administering high doses of intravenous anticoagulant heparin occur in the inpatient setting. If a clinician fails to respond quickly and appropriately, the impact is a bleeding complication, among other complications, which could cause death (Warnock & Huang, 2020). The usual adverse effects of high and chronic heparin administration include injection site reactions, thrombocytopenia, blood in stools or urine, nosebleeds, easy bruising, black stools, continuous and severe bleeding, hyperkalemia, osteoporosis, alopecia, and petechial rash (Warnock & Huang, 2020).
In a study conducted in a specific hospital setting, Kovacs et al. (2022) reported that a 77-year-old man experienced adverse effects of heparin-induced hyperkalemia. Initially, the man presented with shortness of breath and a productive cough. He was later found to have concomitant symptomatic COVID-19 disease and a non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction. His condition necessitated a prescription and an infusion of high-dose unfractionated heparin. The clinician prescribed the appropriate high dose o...