Causes of Medication Error

Causes of Medication Error

Chamberlain College of Nursing

NR-101: Nursing Transition

Fall: Section 1, 2015

Barriers to Safe Medication Management

In medication management, physician, pharmacist and nurses play a key role in order to ensure safety of their patient throughout the medication process. Even though physicians, pharmacist and nurses practice safe medication direction, barriers still spread over the whole medication process, from receiving a prescription to the monitoring and reporting of effects. One of the barriers includes the lack of time which involves work pressure and nurses’ shortage. Another barrier is interdisciplinary cooperation which is the lack of communication. Interdisciplinary cooperation deals with reading and clarifying prescription and monitoring effects.

Lack of Time

Nurses play a vital role in administration of medications to patients, but there is a huge barrier that interfere in the process of executing of their responsibilities which is time and work pressure, and nurses’ shortage. Dilles et al. (2011) said that in medication administration, lack of time and shortage of nurses contributed to the barriers because the nurses lack the time to double-check medication. Safe medication management is compromised as a result of work pressure and the high demand for patient care.

Interdisciplinary Cooperation

Communication is crucial to safe medication management and interdisciplinary cooperation. The nurse should be able to read and clarify prescription written by physicians and pharmacist and be able to know the effects of the medications because if this is not done, then, there is barrier to safe medication practice. Dilles et al. (2011) stated that “Barriers in interdisciplinary cooperation can be influenced by the belief that nurses should know about medication administration, but they expect more cooperation with physicians and pharmacists in monitoring effects”. Therefore, there is lack of communication between the...