Medication Errors In Nursing Home

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Medication Error
It is sad to believe medication error is still one of the most common errors that we face today in the health care system yet the new technology has not been able to transform the health care providers to grab this change, especially in nursing homes. As explained in Mahmood et al, (2012) medication errors are common in nursing homes because the elderly takes a lot of medications .I have been a nurse for 9 years and have come to realize that medication errors can cause a major health problem to a patient if not well monitored. My experience as a nurse working in a nursing home was very dramatic as patient’s medications were given out of mere identification of the patient wristband or if the patient does not have one the trained medical assistant, (TMA) will guest if that was the patient then decide to
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These cause many health problems because some patients were taking other patients medication. At the time, every charting was paper base, which was a problem because some of the doctors had poor writings, which led to the poor interpretation of the order by a nurse or even pharmacist. However, these cases lead to low blood press to some of the patients and some of them had long-term effects. “Safe: avoiding injuries to the patient from the care that is intended to help them” (Institute of Medicine (IOM),(2012). There are many types of errors that lead to medication errors like a prescription error, omission, wrong route, wrong dosing, distractions and improper skills. These may not only be a problem from the nurse’s side, but also an organizational problem like lack of a good system to manage medications. With the advance technology today, medication errors can be one of the problems that we can eradicate in the