Organizational Change Plan: Knowledge Based Medication Administration
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Organizational Change Plan: Knowledge Based Medication Administration and Barcode Scanning
HCS/587
September 25, 2011
Janet Treadwell
Organizational Change Plan: Knowledge Based Medication Administration and Barcode Scanning
In the United States, thousands of people go to respective hospitals in search of high quality care. Unfortunately, a great number of these patients do not make it out of the hospital doors alive, due to medication error. In this paper, I will discuss the growing problem of medication error, which happens in hospitals everywhere, the plan to help resolve this issue, and the need for the implementation of knowledge based medication administration and electronic barcode scanning.
Every year, billions of dollars are spent, and innocent lives are lost, due to preventable medication error. Medication errors cost an estimated seven thousand deaths each year and cost the nation $2 billion annually. The majority of medication errors that actually reach a hospitalized patient occur when a dose of medication is incorrectly administered at the patient’s bedside (Paoletti, 2007). A particular instance that happened within my facility, when a patient was admitted from a nursing home and the wrong paperwork was sent with the patient to the hospital. The normal emergency room admissions process took place, medications were entered based on the list sent with the patient, and the patient was admitted to the floor for further care. As the nurse entered the room to check in on the patient and give them their medications, she realized that the patient on the paper was not the patient lying in the bed. Just happened so, the patient had been to the hospital before, and that nurse remembered taking care of them and identified them as someone else. This could have led to a deadly error. Lack of verification is one of the many reasons that medication errors occur. One of the first things that we learned in nursing school and what should be the goal of every...
HCS/587
September 25, 2011
Janet Treadwell
Organizational Change Plan: Knowledge Based Medication Administration and Barcode Scanning
In the United States, thousands of people go to respective hospitals in search of high quality care. Unfortunately, a great number of these patients do not make it out of the hospital doors alive, due to medication error. In this paper, I will discuss the growing problem of medication error, which happens in hospitals everywhere, the plan to help resolve this issue, and the need for the implementation of knowledge based medication administration and electronic barcode scanning.
Every year, billions of dollars are spent, and innocent lives are lost, due to preventable medication error. Medication errors cost an estimated seven thousand deaths each year and cost the nation $2 billion annually. The majority of medication errors that actually reach a hospitalized patient occur when a dose of medication is incorrectly administered at the patient’s bedside (Paoletti, 2007). A particular instance that happened within my facility, when a patient was admitted from a nursing home and the wrong paperwork was sent with the patient to the hospital. The normal emergency room admissions process took place, medications were entered based on the list sent with the patient, and the patient was admitted to the floor for further care. As the nurse entered the room to check in on the patient and give them their medications, she realized that the patient on the paper was not the patient lying in the bed. Just happened so, the patient had been to the hospital before, and that nurse remembered taking care of them and identified them as someone else. This could have led to a deadly error. Lack of verification is one of the many reasons that medication errors occur. One of the first things that we learned in nursing school and what should be the goal of every...