Applying Research Skills – Medication Errors

Applying Research Skills – Medication Errors

Introduction

A medication error is any action that can be prevented that leads to the incorrect use of drugs or cause harm to the patient while the drug is under the jurisdiction of a healthcare giver or the patient. Medication errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States (Anderson & Abrahamson, 2017). This is preventable; hence healthcare givers must work together with all the stakeholders to solve this menace.

Last week during my clinical rotation, a nurse made a mistake that led to a serious reaction in a pediatric patient. The nurse gave the patient a higher dose of morphine which led to respiratory depression. The nurse was placed under re-evaluation, got a warning, and almost got their license suspended. After this incident, I have a keen interest in developing ways of preventing medication errors.

Identifying Academic Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

To identify academic peer-reviewed articles, I used the University’s Library databases search engine. I managed to get articles from ProQuest Central and PubMed Central. During my search, I used the keywords  ‘healthcare issues’, ‘medication’, and ‘health outcomes.’ To retrieve peer-reviewed articles related to medication errors, I filtered the search process by limiting the articles to medicine and nursing and ensuring that the articles were less than five years old in the publication range.

Assessing Credibility and Relevance of Information Sources

To ensure that the articles I selected were credible, I limited the publication range of peer-reviewed articles to five years. I also ensured that the journals were written by reputable authors from their respective fields. To ensure that the information I collected was relevant to my topic of interest, I ensured that they contained pertinent information focusing on medication errors and healthcare outcomes.

Annotated Bibliography

Tariq, R. A., Vashisht, R., & Scherbak, Y. (2020). Medication errors. StatPearls [Internet]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519065/

The article starts by giving statistics on the number of deaths per year in the United States resulting from medication errors. It is estimated that 7000-9000 people die per year of medication errors. The article further talks about medication errors, such as financial implications and psychological impact on the patient. The article defines medication errors in different contexts and further outlines the different causes of medication errors, such as selecting the wrong drug, illegible handwriting, the similarity of drugs, and miscommunication. The article outlines ways in which the pharmacy department can be involved in medication error prevention. The article concludes by saying that medication errors are a menace, and proper communication channels should be put in place to prevent this. This article is relevant to my topic of interest since it outlines the types, causes, and effects of medication errors. It also outlines areas that can be used to prevent and minimize medication errors.

Hammoudi, B. M., Ismaile, S., & Abu Yahya, O. (2018). Factors associated with medication administration errors and why nurses fail to report them. Scandinavian journal of caring sciences, 32(3), 1038-1046. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/scs.12546

This study assessed the factors that contribute to medication errors occurring and how nurses report them. The study results showed that the factors that led to medication errors by nurses included medication packaging, nurse–doctor communication, processes in the pharmacy, nurse staffing, and issues with transcribing. The main reasons why nurses did not report these errors were related to administrative issues, fear of repercussions, and the different definitions they had of what is considered a medication error. The article concluded by outlining that nurses’ medication errors were medication packaging, workload, poor communication, unclear medication orders and staff rotation. The article recommended that in order to prevent medication errors, teamwork has to be a significant priority. All healthcare facilities must support and guide nurses and urge them to improve their communication. The article also recommended the use of integrated health informatics. This article is relevant to my topic of interest since it outlines the various reasons for medication errors by nurses. It further outlines the measures that can be put into place to mitigate and prevent these errors

Learnings from the Research

I have learned about the various definitions of medical errors. These articles have enlightened me on medication errors’ adverse effects and how different departments in a healthcare facility contribute to medication errors. Furthermore, I have learned about the different roles of the different stakeholders in preventing this menace and the various measures that can be put into place to mitigate this issue. By creating an annotated bibliography, I have created a repository that I will use to conduct future research on medication errors.

References

Anderson, J. G., & Abrahamson, K. (2017, January). Your Health Care May Kill You: Medical Errors in ITCH (pp. 13-17).

Hammoudi, B. M., Ismaile, S., & Abu Yahya, O. (2018). Factors associated with medication administration errors and why nurses fail to report them. Scandinavian journal of caring sciences, 32(3), 1038-1046. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/scs.12546

Kliewer, A., Gillis, A., Hill, R., Schmiedel, F., Bailey, C., Kelly, E., & Schulz, S. (2020). Morphine‐induced respiratory depression is independent of β‐arrestin2 signalling. British journal of pharmacology, 177(13), 2923-2931.

Tariq, R. A., Vashisht, R., & Scherbak, Y. (2020). Medication errors. StatPearls [Internet]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519065/

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Applying Research Skills – Medication Errors

Assessment 2 Instructions: Applying Research Skills

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

• PRINT
• Create a 3-5-page annotated bibliography and summary based on your research related to best practices addressing one of the health care problems or issues in the Assessment Topic Areas media piece faced by a health care organization that is of interest to you.

Introduction

In your professional life, you will need to find credible evidence to support your decisions and your plans of action. You will want to keep abreast of best practices to help your organization adapt to the ever-changing healthcare environment. Being adept at research will help you find the information you need. For this assessment, you will review the Assessment Topic Areas media piece and select one of the healthcare problems or issues to research a current healthcare problem or issue faced by a healthcare organization that is of interest to you.

Demonstration of Proficiency

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

• • Competency 1: Apply information literacy and library research skills to obtain scholarly information in the field of health care.
    • Identify academic peer-reviewed journal articles relevant to a healthcare problem or issue and describe the criteria used for the literature search.
  • Competency 2: Apply scholarly information through critical thinking to solve problems in the field of health care.
    • Assess the credibility and relevance of information sources.
    • Summarize what was learned from developing an annotated bibliography.
    • Analyze academic peer-reviewed journal articles using the annotated bibliography organizational format.
  • Competency 4: Write for a specific audience in an appropriate tone and style in accordance with Capella’s writing standards.
    • Summarize a healthcare problem or issue and describe a personal interest in it and experience with it.
    • Write clearly and logically, with correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.
    • Write the following APA style for in-text citations, quotes, and references.

Instructions

Applying Research Skills

Note: The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. At a minimum, be sure to address each point. In addition, you are encouraged to review the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.

For this assessment, research best practices related to a current health care problem. Your selected problem or issue will be utilized again in Assessment 3. To explore your chosen topic, you should use the first two steps of the Socratic Problem-Solving Approach to aid your critical thinking.

1. View the Assessment Topic Areas media piece and select one of the healthcare problems or issues in the media piece to research. Write a brief overview of the selected topic. In your overview:
   • Summarize the health care problem or issue.
   • Describe your interest in the topic.
   • Describe any professional experience you have with this topic.
2. Identify peer-reviewed articles relevant to healthcare issues or problems.
   • Conduct a search for scholarly or academic peer-reviewed literature related to the topic and describe the criteria you used to search for articles, including the names of the databases you used. You will select four current scholarly or academic peer-reviewed journal articles published during the past 3–5 years that relate to your topic.
     • You will want to access the applicable Undergraduate Library Research Guide related to your degree (found at the NHS Learner Success Lab) for tips to help you in your search.
   • Use keywords related to the healthcare problem or issue you are researching to select relevant articles.
3. Assess the credibility and explain the relevance of the information sources you find.
   • Determine if the source is from an academic peer-reviewed journal.
   • Determine if the publication is current.
   • Determine if information in the academic peer-reviewed journal article is still relevant.
4. Analyze academic peer-reviewed journal articles using the annotated bibliography organizational format. Provide rationale for inclusion of each selected article. The purpose of an annotated bibliography is to document a list of references along with key information about each one. The detail about the reference is the annotation. Developing this annotated bibliography will create a foundation of knowledge about the selected topic. In your annotated bibliography:
   • Identify the purpose of the article.
   • Summarize the information.
   • Provide a rationale for the inclusion of each article.
   • Include the conclusions and findings of the article.
   • Write your annotated bibliography in a paragraph form. The annotated bibliography should be approximately 150 words (1–3 paragraphs) in length.
   • List the full reference for the source in APA format (author, date, title, publisher, et cetera) and use APA format for the annotated bibliography.
   • Make sure the references are listed in alphabetical order, are double-spaced, and use hanging indents.
5. Summarize what you have learned from developing an annotated bibliography.
   • Summarize what you learned from your research in a separate paragraph or two at the end of the paper.
   • List the main points you learned from your research.
   • Summarize the main contributions of the sources you chose and how they enhanced your knowledge about the topic.

Example Assessment: You may use the following to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like:

• Assessment 2 Example [PDF].

Additional Requirements

Your assessment should also meet the following requirements:

• Length: 3–5 typed, double-spaced pages, not including the title page and reference page.
• Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.
• APA template: Use the APA Style Paper Template [DOCX]as the paper format and the APA Style Paper Tutorial [DOCX] for guidance.
• Written communication: Write clearly and logically, with correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.
• Content: Provide a title page and reference page following APA style.
• References: Use at least four scholarly or academic peer-reviewed journal articles.
• APA format: Follow current APA guidelines for in-text citation of outside sources in the body of your paper and also on the reference page.

If you would like assistance in organizing your assessment, or if you simply have a question about your assessment, please do not hesitate to ask faculty or the teaching assistants in the NHS Learner Success Lab for guidance and suggestions.

• SCORING GUIDE

Use the scoring guide to understand how your assessment will be evaluated.

VIEW SCORING GUIDE