Medication Error Consequences
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Medication Error Consequences
Drug prescriptions and administration are one of the essential aspects of patient care. A medication error is a common yet dangerous occurrence that happens in hospitals. Medication errors have dire consequences for patients, such as being severe injury or even death. The paper examines the consequences to be faced by nurses who make a medication error.
To reduce and prevent the occurrence of a medication error, the nurses involved in the error should be disciplined. Lack of consequences to nurses making medical errors could increase the frequency of errors and reduce the hospital’s overall performance and rating. The punishment against nurses should be different depending on the cause and reason for the medication error instead of the outcome of the medication’s effects. When medication errors result in an adverse effect like death or whether the error causes mild effects should not influence the type of Punishment to executed to nurses.
Disregarding defined protocols, lack of counterchecking medicines and giving alternative medicine without consultation are examples of nurses’ complacency that could lead to medication errors. In the case of complacency on the nurses’ part, the punishment should be severe compared to when nurses make honest mistakes. Negligence should not be tolerated in medical facilities and action should be immediately taken not only to nurses but also other health care providers who contribute to medical errors.
Honest mistakes on both the nurses and physicians part should also be punished. Ignorance should never be an excuse for medication errors. When a nurse administers the wrong drugs to the patient because of the similarity in appearance, the punishment should be less severe. An example of a punishment to be administered to such a nurse could include suspension from the hospital for two weeks.
References
Tariq, R. A., Vashisht, R., & Scherbak, Y. (2020). Medication errors. StatPearls [Internet].
Question
Two nurses make a medication error: One causes an adverse event with a patient and the other does not. Should the nurses be disciplined, and, if so, should they be disciplined the same way? Why or why not? How would this be addressed in a just culture?