Bar-Coded Medication Administration

Bar-Coded Medication Administration Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Bar-Coded Medication Administration Various technological advancements have greatly transformed nursing in recent years. To improve the efficiency and safety of the practice, different health institutions are increasingly incorporating various computer-assisted devices into the daily nursing practice. The use of bar-coded medication administration systems is one such system. Though such technologies carry many benefits for both the patients and the nurses, they are met with resistance from various quarters just like any other proposed change in any organization. The introduction of a new system can lead to fear and anxiety among nurses. For any change process to succeed, it must be implemented in an efficient and planned way. This paper seeks to apply the Kurt Lewin’s Change Theory to show how the bar-coded medication application technology can be incorporated in the nursing practice to improve patient safety. Medication Errors Medication errors form the largest percentage of medical errors. A medication error refers to any, either of omission or commission that occurs at any point of the pathway from the time a clinician prescribes medication, to the time when the medication is administered to the patient. Though medications can occur at any point of the pathway, nurses are the last line of defense and can arrest an error during the bedside administration. The resulting harm of a medication error is known as an adverse drug event (ADE). It is estimated that one in every three adverse drug events are caused by medication errors following the administration of the wrong drugs by the nurse. A 2013 study found out that approximately 64.55% of nurses had committed medication errors at some point in their careers (Cheragi, Manoocheri, Mohammadnejad, & Ehsani, 2013). The administration of the wrong dosages and wrong infusion rates were established as the commonest medication error. The major cause of medication errors was found to be the use of abbreviations rather than the full name of the drug. Such medication errors result in injuries or deaths that have far-reaching consequences. It increases the rates of mortality, lengthens the hospital stay, and leads to the accruement of related costs. Such occurrences also hurt the trust of the public in the health systems. Approximately half of ADEs can be prevented. The major professional goal in nursing is to provide quality care and improve the health of the patient. Therefore, medication errors go against the very spirit of the nursing profession. This makes medication errors a huge problem in the profession. Solutions must be sought and implemented to help reduce the occurrences of medication errors and improve patient safety. Over the years, different measures such as electronic medical records and patient identification have been taken to help address the issue (Naples, Hanlon, Schmader, & Semla, 2016). In the organization under study, the medication delivery and administration system involves the use of old medication carts and wholly relies on manual checks to make sure that the right patient gets the right medication at the right time, through the right route, in the right dosage, and at the right site. Th...