Capella University NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 4 Quality Improvement Initiative Tool Kit Essay Sample Paper 2

Capella University NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 4 Quality Improvement Initiative Tool Kit Essay

Prevention of medication errors among nurses utilizes the best available evidence-based practice knowledge to achieve the best outcomes. Medication errors related to medication administration are caused by various factors that can be condensed into personal and contextual factors. The proposed plan was derived from three main themes: the use of technology, medication reconciliation, and interdisciplinary collaboration. This annotated bibliography presents the best resources to empower nurses and health organizations with the best knowledge and strategies to prevent medication administration errors.

Annotated Bibliography

Use of Technology to Prevent Medication Errors

Ahtiainen, H. K., Kallio, M. M., Airaksinen, M., & Holmström, A.-R. (2020). Safety, time and cost evaluation of automated and semi-automated drug distribution systems in hospitals: a systematic review. European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy. Science and Practice, 27(5), 253–262. https://doi.org/10.1136/ejhpharm-2018-001791

Medication errors impact patient safety, care costs, and efficiency of care. Various technological systems can be implemented to prevent prescription, dispensing, administration, monitoring, and storage errors. This article evaluates the superiority of the various systems used in medication error prevention. Centralized and hybrid systems are some of the systems evaluated in this systematic review. These systems are evaluated concerning costs, patient safety, and care efficiency. This high-level evidence source would provide critical insights into the main technology systems for medication error prevention.

Devin, J., Cleary, B. J., & Cullinan, S. (2020). The impact of health information technology on prescribing errors in hospitals: a systematic review and behavior change technique analysis. Systematic Reviews, 9(1), 275. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-020-01510-7

Health information technology can be used to prevent almost all types of medication errors, from prescription, dispensation, administration, monitoring, and storage. There are various types of health information technologies used. This journal article is from a systematic review study that analyzes behavior change techniques and health information technologies used to prevent medication errors, including prescribing errors.

Compared to paper order entries, using health information systems for prescriptions reduces medication errors. The role of clinicians in human-technology interaction is also discussed in this article. It is a helpful source of information on the best technologies to adopt to reduce medication errors. Nurses can benefit from the content of this source because it is a high-level evidence source.

Gates, P. J., Hardie, R.-A., Raban, M. Z., Li, L., & Westbrook, J. I. (2021). How effective are electronic medication systems in reducing medication error rates and associated harm among hospital inpatients? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association: JAMIA, 28(1), 167–176. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa230

The use of technology may not solve most medication errors. Unfortunately, technology use can precipitate other errors leading to medication errors at all stages. This source is a systematic review and metanalyses of articles that analyze both sides of technology use in medication errors. Studies evaluating the risks and benefits of technology use are discussed and evaluated.

Their findings are relevant to nursing practice and remind the reader that needs to carefully and judiciously interact with technology systems when attempting to prevent medication errors. This source is indispensable when considering technology systems as a strategy for preventing medication errors.

Vilela, R. P. B., & Jericó, M. de C. (2019). Implementing technologies to prevent medication errors at a high-complexity hospital: analysis of cost and results. Einstein (Sao Paulo, Brazil), 17(4), eGS4621. https://doi.org/10.31744/einstein_journal/2019GS4621

Reducing medication errors improves costs and patient care outcomes. Implementing these technologies also requires financial costs. This source is from a retrospective, descriptive-exploratory, quantitative study in Brazil that assessed the overall annual costs required to implement technology systems to prevent medication errors. Cost assessment is vital to a nurse administrator for planning and policy-making proposes.

Most healthcare projects require nurses’ input and their knowledge about costs makes their participation in health project planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation important. This source identifies 13 technologies that are required to prevent medication errors in prescription monitoring. The average costs in Rands are also presented in this source. Therefore, it is an important source for administrative and management nursing.

Medication Reconciliation for Prevent Medication Errors

Redmond, P., Grimes, T. C., McDonnell, R., Boland, F., Hughes, C., & Fahey, T. (2018). Impact of medication reconciliation for improving transitions of care. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 8(8), CD010791. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD010791.pub2

Medication reconciliation is the process of comparing patient medication lists to prevent the effects of medication errors. Medication discrepancies and patient care-related outcomes are some of the variables assessed in this article. This article discusses the evidenced-based outcomes of medication adverse effects, preventable adverse drug events (PADEs), unplanned hospitalizations, and hospital utilization. This source also asserts the need for and need for medication reconciliation at all points of transition of care. It is an excellent source to enable a nurse to understand the concept of medication reconciliation and how it impacts patient care outcomes and interprofessional approaches.

Chiewchantanakit, D., Meakchai, A., Pituchaturont, N., Dilokthornsakul, P., & Dhippayom, T. (2020). The effectiveness of medication reconciliation to prevent medication error: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Research in Social & Administrative Pharmacy: RSAP, 16(7), 886–894. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sapharm.2019.10.004

This article is a systematic review of randomized controlled trials and other studies with metanalysis that aimed at assessing the effectiveness of medication reconciliation on medication error prevention. This article describes the importance of medication in low-resource settings and low-income countries. Other factors that are needed to support medication reconciliation to help in medication error prevention are discussed in this article. It is a high-level evidence source, and its findings are credible for application in practice.

Kreckman, J., Wasey, W., Wise, S., Stevens, T., Millburg, L., & Jaeger, C. (2018). Improving medication reconciliation at hospital admission, discharge, and ambulatory care through a transition of the care team. BMJ Open Quality, 7(2), e000281. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2017-000281

This article explains the process and importance of medication reconciliation in care transitions, including ambulatory care. The need for incorporation of medication reconciliation in the family medicine hospitalist services is explained in this study. This article also brings a new concept of creating a transitional care team to oversee medication reconciliation in settings where care transitions are frequent and interdisciplinary collaboration is critical.

The need to give medication reconciliation at admission, discharge, and follow-up are presented in this paper through research. This source is credible and evidence-based, thus the need to incorporate it into our practice. Most of the findings support the need to perform medication reconciliation in care transitions.

Wheeler, A. J., Scahill, S., Hopcroft, D., & Stapleton, H. (2018). Reducing medication errors at transitions of care is everyone’s business. Australian Prescriber, 41(3), 73–77. https://doi.org/10.18773/austprescr.2018.021

This narrative review article by Wheeler et al. (2018) explains the responsibility that every clinical should have in medication reconciliation. In this resource, the patient is seen as the one constant in the continuum of care provision in every clinical setting. This article emphasizes the need for every healthcare professional to meet the patient at any point of care to perform medication reconciliation and communicate promptly in cases of discrepancies.

The benefits are seen in patients with literacy issues, complect medication regimens, older patients, and patients with mental illnesses. This resource also describes the process of improving patient-centered care, improving medicines communication during transitions, and the concept of shared care programs. Therefore, this article has high-yield evidence that would change your perception of medication reconciliations.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Medication Error Prevention

Manias, E. (2018). Effects of interdisciplinary collaboration in hospitals on medication errors: an integrative review. Expert Opinion on Drug Safety, 17(3), 259–275. https://doi.org/10.1080/14740338.2018.1424830

Collaboration between more than one field of specialization is referred to as interdisciplinary collaboration. This source explores the effects this collaboration can have on medication errors. This integrative review identified five interdisciplinary collaboration areas involved in medication errors.

These areas were the pharmacist’s participation in the team, tools of team communication such as logs and guidelines, collaborative review of medication lists at admission and discharge, collaborative workshops and conferences, and role differentiation. This article also explored future research and practice regarding medication safety and interdisciplinary collaboration. This article gives the nurse an overview of key areas of multidisciplinary teams that nurse leadership must focus on to implement effective teams and coronations.

Irajpour, A., Farzi, S., Saghaei, M., & Ravaghi, H. (2019). Effect of interprofessional education of medication safety program on the medication error of physicians and nurses in the intensive care units. Journal of Education and Health Promotion, 8, 196. https://doi.org/10.4103/jehp.jehp_200_19

Medication errors are also a problem in acute care settings. This article assessed the effect of interprofessional education on patient safety in intensive care units (ICUs), including adverse events and medication errors. This quasi-experimental study article recommends interprofessional education as opposed to single-professional education. The link between interprofessional education and interprofessional collaboration is expressed in this article as the key to reducing medication errors. The findings include statistical significance test results and are credible.

Khalil, H., & Lee, S. (2018). The implementation of a successful medication safety program in primary care. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 24(2), 403–407. https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.12870

Medication safety programs can also be tailored to meet the safety needs of the institution. This article describes a medication safety program that was implemented in one of the Australian hospitals to prevent medication errors. Key elements of the pragma included interprofessional education, the formation of medication safety teams, and the implementation of safety guidelines.

The role of teamwork and interdisciplinary education is emphasized in this article. The result on outcomes, such as the clinician’s knowledge, behavior, satisfaction, and confidence, are presented in this article. This is a scholarly, evidence-based source that evaluates the interdisciplinary approach from a program perspective.

Johansen, J. S., Havnes, K., Halvorsen, K. H., Haustreis, S., Skaue, L. W., Kamycheva, E., Mathiesen, L., Viktil, K. K., Granås, A. G., & Garcia, B. H. (2018). Interdisciplinary collaboration across secondary and primary care to improve medication safety in the elderly (IMMENSE study): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. BMJ Open, 8(1), e020106. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-020106

Unplanned readmission, especially drug-related readmissions, can be reduced through interdisciplinary collaborative approaches. The authors of this article implemented a study abbreviated as IMMENSE that utilized an integrated medicines management (IMM) model to improve medication safety. In their program study, various approaches that required interdisciplinary collaboration were implemented. These were medication reconciliations.

Medication review, patient education and counseling about medications, and post-discharge follow-up. The outcomes of these interdisciplinary activities that were explored were readmission rate, mortality, stroke, fractures, medication changes, medication appropriateness, length of hospital stay, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). This article evaluated interdisciplinary approaches to patient safety from different perspectives. The robustness of the information from this study is enough to adopt the findings into practice. The source is credible because it is scholarly and peer viewed.

Conclusion

This annotated bibliography summarizes various sources that can provide crucial information to improve nurses’ knowledge and attitude and guide their skills in medication error prevention through technology, medication reconciliation, and interdisciplinary collaboration. The resources summarized are all journal articles from studies conducted by healthcare professionals in various health subfields.

The sources were published in the past five years. They have been sourced from various known journal databases. Their methodologies are well, and the journals are peer-reviewed. Therefore, all the sources can be deemed credible and relate to medication error prevention. A total of 12 sources have been presented in this resource.