Electronic Medication Administration Record (EMAR)

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In the case study, I can see that several of the IT goals were used. Goal two: Advance Secure and Interoperable health information was used to help fix the medication error. The health IT developer changed the settings so that the medication name was clearly displayed, which met objective A (being able to find the pertinent information) and B (identified and fixed the problem), (The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 2011, para. 29). The second goal that was used was number three: strengthen healthcare delivery. They used this goal by making all the med names and drug formulation on the electronic medication administration record (EMAR). This meets objective A (improving safe and effective care), B (improving high quality healthcare), and C (improves clinical service so it doesn’t happen again), (The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information …show more content…
Since the EMAR is new, the nurses are still getting used to it. The nurse’s patient is having cancer pain and is ordered two different morphine orders: extended release every 12 hours and immediate release as needed. The EMAR screen only showed the name of the drug instead of other facts about it. The nurse gave both at the same time and sent the patient into respiratory arrest. They intubated and the patient is stable. IT administration changed the settings to display drug name and drug formulation. A type of IT situation happened in this case study.
The type of IT Incident that happened was software malfunctions. The software within the EMAR wasn’t what it should have been and didn’t show the correct dosage function (ECRI Institute, 2013, p. 10). This led to a medication error. In my practice, we give Tylenol and Tylenol with codeine. We could make the same error if the drug formula wasn’t posted in our EMAR. This could have caused several consequences that could have led to a bad