Solution NHS-FPX4000 Assessment 2-Developing a Health Care Perspective
Applying Research Skills
Effective research skills enable nurses to understand events in their practice and evidence informed options for optimizing care outcomes. The nursing team should have the knowledge, skills, and experiences that allow them to synthesize evidence from credible and reliable sources to improve quality and safety of patient care. One health issue that requires the healthcare team members to be competent researchers is medication errors. The concern entails wrong medication preparation, dispensing, and administration, which could cause severe health complications and premature deaths. Patients are also vulnerable to prolonged hospitalization, increased frequency of readmissions, and additional costs that increase health burden. As such, it is crucial to improve research skills for adequate understanding and response to issues in a complex clinical environment. This assessment focuses on a scenario where a new nurse administered an excessive dosage of a low blood pressure medication meant for an elderly patient. The resulting fatality provides key lessons on the need for careful considerations of the medication process to protect patients from adverse outcomes.
Articles on Medication Errors
Peer-reviewed journal articles provide opportunities to acquire current and authoritative findings on the causes, consequences, and prevention measures associated with medication errors. The sources are outcomes of thorough and independent reviews by experts with adequate knowledge of issues in the nursing field. Similarly, independent reviewers check the validity and objectivity of research methodologies to ascertain their impact on nursing research. For these reasons, it is necessary to utilize credible sources such as the PubMed Central and Capella University databases. The resources enhance access to articles with accurate and complete findings on medication errors. The keywords applied for this assessment include, medication administration errors, medication errors, medication safety, and dosage errors. The search produced four articles published within the last five years to guide decisions on events in the care environment and their implications on the quality and safety of patient care.
Annotated Bibliography
Koyama, A., Maddox, C. S., Li, L., Bucknail, T., & Westbrook, J. (2020). Effectiveness of double checking to reduce medication administration errors: A systematic review. BMJ Quality & Safety, 29(7), 595-603. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31391315/
Koyama et al. highlight the adverse consequences of medication errors and the need for evidence-based and sustainable solutions. According to the authors, double checking is a crucial practice that makes nurses responsive to events in a complex clinical setting. The process is appropriate for high-risk drugs, where patients have complex conditions and characteristics that increase the risk of errors. The systematic review allowed the authors to synthesize findings from scholarly and peer-reviewed journal articles that address effectiveness of double checking. The evidence captures the need for nurses to enhance fidelity of double checking as a means of reducing errors. The article is useful to nurse researchers aiming to contribute to recommendations about appropriate use of double checks to improve safety across care continuum. The findings also support the need for nurses to use information technology to streamline medication administration process and reduce the time taken to complete double checking processes.
Manias, E., Kusljic, S., & Wu, A. (2020). Interventions to reduce medication errors in adult medical and surgical settings: A systematic review. Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safe, 11, 1-28. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2042098620968309
The article reminds healthcare providers about the need for increased vigilance across the various points of medication management process. The focus on acute medical and surgical units reveals the implications of medication errors on patients, the workforce, and organization. The findings also reveal the need for evidence-based and sustainable programs to prevent harm during medication administration. For instance, the authors advocate for interdisciplinary collaboration as one of the pathways that allows care professionals to identify and intercept errors. The article is useful to nurse researchers aiming to familiarize themselves with single and combined interventions that boost quality and safety of care. The systematic review also allows nurse researchers to extensively consider alternatives available in medical and surgical settings to optimize care outcomes. Thus, there are options available to focus on clinical significance of interventions such as interdisciplinary approaches that facilitate tim