Medical errors are a major cause for concern in the medical field. The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention defines a medication error as ‘any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health-care professional, patient or consumer (Unver, Tastan, & Akbayrak. 2012). Medical errors can occur because of several reasons. This paper will cover just three ways medical errors can be made: by misinterpretation/communication, overworking/unsafe staffing ratios, and working under the influence. When medical errors are made, blame may not always be placed on the nurse alone. A medical error does not have to be made in …show more content…
When a nurse worker is under the influence of drugs or alcohol this is an intentional abuse on the nurses’ part and should always be reported if another member of the healthcare team suspects another employee is impaired while on the job. When a nurse knowingly partakes in illegal activity that can cause harm to oneself or risk the safety of a patient, preventable medical errors are made. Though an employee is drug tested before employment through either urinalysis or hair sample these two very different tests do not detect alcohol use unless the nurse has recently drank alcohol then it can be detected in a urinalysis. A urinalysis is when a person provides a urine sample and is the most common type of drug test used to detect the presence of metabolites and drug residues, a hair sample is where the employer will take a snippet of hair from the employee, this gives a longer range of reference of 90 days and shows previous drug use but does not show recent usage (Banja, J. 2014). In terms the urinalysis will show more recent drug use events and a hair sample will show a history of usage. A nurse who has a drug abuse problem may divert drugs from a patient to themselves. Though there are procedures in place to avoid drug diversion it does not mean that it does not happen or that it will prevent it from happening. A nurse that is working while “impaired” should be reported …show more content…
There are some ways to avoid medical errors covered in earlier reading. The patient “rights” being of one ways to avoid giving the wrong medication by assuring to follow that you have the right patient, drug, dose, route, time and documentation. There is an old saying widely used in the health care profession “if it wasn’t documented, it didn’t happen”. Documentation is key when having a case in litigation because of a medical error. Though the nurse may have given the medication or treatment ordered and the patient suffered an adverse effect or worse died, if she/he did not document that it was done then he/she does not have much proof that it was indeed done. Another way to prevent errors in a surgery or procedure room is to do what is called a “timeout” this procedure assures that they have the right patient in the room, that they are performing the correct procedure on the patient and on the correct body part. There are always ways to improve the act of error it just takes time. Time is a big thing that not a lot of nurses or other healthcare workers have due to working conditions so some take shortcuts and this is when errors