Administration of Medication Error

Administration of Medication Error Name Institution Administration of Medication Error Introduction Patient safety is one of the key concerns for health care organizations and practitioners as it embraces the purpose or desired outcome of providing care to those in need of medical attention for their diverse health problems. The health care practitioners or nursing care providers are usually at the forefront in ensuring that the patients get the best quality care without compromising their safety within and outside the facilities. It is the duty of the nurses on call, for instance, to ensure that the in-patients get their prescribed medication in accordance to the treatment process or the patient’s charts. The nurses also have a responsibility to make sure that the patients do not miss their dosage or take the right dosage of medication for the outpatients CITATION All12 \l 1033 (Allbee, 2012). Failure to meet these and other parameters of medication may result in fatal consequences on the patient as it may lead to negative drug events, lengthening of the patients’ hospital stay, as well as morbidity and even mortality. It is important to reiterate on the fact that administration of medication errors form one of the most common mistakes compromising patient safety in the health care sector. However, one cannot state the magnitude of the problem without a clear or more precise definition of the problem. Administration of medication errors refers to the care provider’s wrongful prescription, dispensing, and administration of drugs to a patient and thus exposing them to preventable harm CITATION Aro091 \l 1033 (Aronson, Medication errors: definitions and classification, 2009). The wide range or scope of the patient safety problem demands a comprehensive approach in determining the extent of harm or rather the magnitude of the problem. Nevertheless, the patient safety problem has equally diverse repercussions on both the patients and the health care sector. Provided herein is a comprehensive analysis of the risk factors for AMEs, its prevalence in the health care sector, the model practices for reduced occurrences of the problem, and the proposed strategic or interventional measures to protect patients from such mistakes. The paper seeks to achieve the outlined objective by making a critical analysis of selected literature on the administration of medication errors with the key phrase medication administration error being the selection criteria for the sources used. Magnitude of the Problem According to Feleke, et al., Medication administration error: magnitude and associated factors among nurses in Ethiopia, the omission of doses and administration of drugs at the wrong time form a significant part of the administration of medication errorsCITATION Fel15 \l 1033 (Feleke, 2015). The study conducted by Feleke and colleagues goes ahead to point at the shocking statistics provided by the National Patient Safety of United Kingdom (UK) that 50% of all drug administration in hospitals are erraticCITATION Fel15 \l 1033 (Feleke, 2015). In essence, the agency purports that half of all the drug administration occurring in the UK’s hospitals constitutes the administration of medication errors. According to the article, the administr...