Question

6. Timeliness of medicine administration in the hospital setting has been identified as a cause of medication misadventure and subsequent patient harm. Describe two situations where delaying medication administration will cause harm to the patient

Answer 1

Medicine administration has to be done according to the time intervals ordered. Delay in administration of medicine can result in serious harm to the patient which can even result in death of the patient. Administration of medication is an important role of the nurse and knowledge on the medication , frequency and its importance to give at the appropriate time is necessary.

Let us go through the situations where delay of administration of medication can result in harm to the patient:

• Antibiotics are usually given in the specified intervals with the exact dosage prescribed. The time duration is important as delaying may result in the inefficiency of the drug. Antibiotics usually act as bacteriostatic or bacteriocidal and if the action of the antibiotics gets delayed there is distruption in this bacteriocidal and static properties resulting in inefficiency of the drug. Therefore, it is necessary to give the prescribed antibiotics on time.
• Aspirin is the drug which is given to prevent the blood clot formation by reducing the clumping action of platelets. The low dose of aspirin is given to patients with thrombus or risk of thrombus development which can prevent heart attack and stroke. Therefore , skipping of this drug or delaying of this can be fatal.

These are the two situations where delaying medicine administration will cause harm to the patient.

Thank you.