Chapter 6. Non-Parenteral Medication Administration
6.2 Safe Medication Administration
Safe and accurate medication administration is an important and potentially challenging nursing responsibility. Medication administration not only requires understanding medications, how they work, side effects, and significant nursing considerations, it also involves good decision-making skills and clinical judgment. Nurses must understand why patients take particular medications, anticipate potential med-med interactions, and assess individual patient response.
Nurses are human, so naturally medication errors do happen. The Joint Commission (TJC), a non profit organization that accredits health care organizations and programs, defines medication errors as any preventable event that may cause inappropriate medication use or jeopardize patient safety (TJC, 2012).
Medication errors have a substantial impact on health care in Canada (Butt, 2010) and are the number-one error in health care (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2018).
In one study looking at drug related hospital admissions and emergency department (ED) visits, Zed et al. (2008) found that adverse drug reactions are estimated to account for more than 25% of drug-related hospital admissions and ED visits (as cited in CIHI, 2013). Of these, 68% are considered preventable. Of the patients whose ER visits were drug related, their hospital admission rates were higher and their length of stay longer when compared to patients who presented for other reasons. Studies by other researchers reveal similar and equally concerning findings about negative medication related effects on people (Baker et al., 2004; Bell et al., 2011). The cost to patients and families, as well as to the healthcare system, points to the importance of safety in relation to all phases of the medication administration process.
Review Table 6.1 for principles for safer medication administration.
Administering medications in a timely fashion and according to the prescribed frequency is considered an important part of safe medication administration in terms of maintaining therapeutic drug levels and, therefore, therapeutic drug effectiveness. Traditionally, a 30 minute window on either side of a medication administration time was considered responsible practice. In a study involving acute care nurses, ISMP (2011) found that increasing patient acuity, polypharmacy, and increasing nursing workloads made it difficult for nurses to administer medications within this time frame. The resulting work-arounds done by nurses to try and avoid medication errors due to being “late” led to other, sometimes serious, errors. In response, the ISMP has challenged this 30 minute tradition and has developed guidelines for timely medication administration. The ISMP does not dictate to institutions what they must do, rather they encourage all institutions to create their own list of time critical medications.
Table 6.2 reflects these new recommendations.
Table 6.