Question

How do the strategies for preventing medication errors work? How can one make them effective? What are some challenges? what are some ways that as a nurse you can ensure that you avoid medication errors in the future?

Answer 1

Strategies to prevent medication errors

1. Five rights of medication administration.:right patient, right drug, right dose, right dose, right time.
2. Double check
3. Have a nurse or physician read back the order
4. Document every this at the right time
5. Ensure proper storage and labelling of medication
6. Make and follow institutional policies and guidelines for medications.
7. Always have a drug guide available at hand.

We can make the strategies for preventing medication error effective by following strict guidelines. If we follow the guidelines that are common and also institutional it would work better. Proper documentation, effective communication and good supervision will also help to prevent medication errors.

The main challenge in case of medication errors are nurse patient ratio. The number of patients that are handled by a nurse is very much higher than the theoretical ratio in most of the institutions. Another problem is lack of exposure of health staff to changing technology and new medications.

What we can do in future to prevent medication error is to maintain a healthy ratio of staff and patient. Periodic inservice training to the health staff in every institutions.