A new study of 1,039 nurses across the United States conducted by The American Nurses Association (ANA) and sponsored by ANA and Inviro Medical Devices has the following clear message: most injectable medication errors at hospitals arise from the difficulty of reading the gradation marks on syringes.
Why? Because the syringes are usually labeled with improvised methods that cover the gradation markings on the barrel of the syringe. There is plenty room for error there.
Sixty five percent of the nurses surveyed have mentioned labels that cover the syringe barrels and thus make it hard to read the volume markings as a major issue in administering correct amount of medication.
Thirty nine percent said a label makes it hard for the nurses to compare the syringe dosage to the one specified in the doctor’s order.
And when the syringes are not even labeled at all (over one-quarter of all cases) then there is of course the additional risk of delivering the wrong medication as well.
This leads to yet another important question which the survey addressed in detail: why do the hard-working and well-qualified nurses in our hospitals resort to such makeshift measures?
The answers again are no surprise to seasoned veterans of the health care system:
* 78% said they were “too rushed” during their shifts and that there was not enough help to take care of the assignments at a slower pace.
* 68% said “poor, illegible handwriting” contributed to injectable medication errors.
* 62% said missing the physician's orders, or “mistaken orders” by the doctors themselves contributed to the errors.
* 60 % said “working with too many medications” was a major error factor.
* 56% mentioned “similar drug names or medication appearance” as the culprit.
It goes to show that better and correct communication and syringe-label design are not luxuries but urgent necessities in our health care system.
The article New Study Of Nurses Reveal Sources Of Injectable Medication Errors was Submitted by U. Akinci through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: U. Akinci is the Editor of the  nthly |
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