Medication Administration Errors

Paper Summary:

This paper addresses the problem of medication administration errors (MAE) by reviewing the article "Applying Airline Safety Practices to Medication Administration" by Theresa M. Pape. The author summarizes Pape's study of predictive distracters of nurses during medication administration cycles and cautions that this task is one that must be carried out with very little space for error. The paper reviews the quasi-experiment in the study and concludes that the results from the study shows that it is imperative that health care leaders discourage unnecessary conversation that arises from both the nurse administering the medications and other staff members. The paper also stresses that the relevance of this study is undeniable for hospitals and healthcare institutes.

From the Paper:

"The relevance of this study is undeniable. In the hospital, medication errors can be as minimal as missing out on a patient's single dose of antibiotics, or as fatal as giving too much mind-altering medication on a critically ill patient. Many deaths have occurred from such mistakes, and health care professionals must do more than accounting blame on the system, and even on others. The quality of health care has suffered, and many have blamed this on short staffing and overworked nurses. However, this study revealed that the problem may not be structurally-rooted at all: medication errors are gravely influenced by the amount of distraction nurses inflict upon themselves."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Pape, T. M. (2003). "Applying airline safety practices to medication administration." Medsurg Nursing, 12(2): 77-93.

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