Prevention of Medication Errors in Infants

Medication dispensing errors in infants are among the key threats that the latter may face. Since newborns are extremely vulnerable to the outside factors and need very careful dosing of the required medicine, neonatal dispensing errors can be fatal for newborn children (Sauberan, Dean, FiedeLak, & Abraham, 2010). It is assumed that the issue in question should be addressed by incorporating the information transfer enhancement approach into the provision of medical treatment to infants, as well as reconsidering the responsibilities among nurses so that no further confusion could occur.

According to the existing evidence, the carelessness, with which the issue is treated in nursing at present, may trigger a rapid decrease in the death toll among infants. Therefore, the project in question will be beneficial to the patients due to the enhanced control over the accuracy of the medication dispensing to infants.

More importantly, the confusion in the nursing department, which is caused due by the similarities between the names of the medicine for newborns and adults, contributes to the confusion to a considerable extent, therefore, leading to infants developing major health issues due to medical error (Sauberan et al., 2010). The mistakes in question traditionally arise when it comes to the vaccination process, as studies explain (Sauberan et al., 2010). Therefore, the necessity for the nursing specialists to adopt a strategy for enhancing circumspection in the nursing department is essential for addressing the problem in question.

A closer look at the problem will reveal that catering to the needs of infants requires a very careful and elaborate method for dosing medicine. The lack of understanding of the problem significance, as well as the absence of a proper method, with the help of which the corresponding medicine should be administered to infants, is the key cause of concern (Sauberan et al., 2010). Hence, creating the methods for not only developing a more adequate approach towards the nursing services provision and scheduling the nurses’ tasks but also the design of the tools that will enhance personal and professional responsibility among the nursing staff, is essential.

Additionally, the issue of communication between the pharmacist and the nurse deserves to be mentioned among the key problems. According to the information provided in the research in question, it was the lack of clarifications for the pharmacist that triggered the provision of adult-strength medicine dose (Sauberan et al., 2010). Even though a relatively simple procedure of the parent contacting the pharmacist is described in the study, it is obvious that the existing communication system needs to be updated significantly: “In each case, an investigating pharmacist was made aware of the error through direct communication by the patient’s nurse or nurse manager shortly after the error occurred” (Sauberan et al., 2010, p. 50). The incorporation of the key information technology tools, including digital ones, should be viewed as an option. Although the installation of the corresponding technological advances into the framework of the nursing specialists’ operations may trigger major costs, the resulting drop in the number of errors will be worth the expenses taken. For these purposes, the changes in the current leadership practices in the nursing environment and the introduction of the transformative leadership approach are necessary. Thus, an increase in the staff’s motivation must be considered the first step towards changing the current nursing setting will be triggered. As a result, the “collaboration among centralized and decentralized pharmacists and quality improvement specialists” (Sauberan et al., 2010, p. 56) will be facilitated in the nursing environment.

Reference List

Sauberan, J. B., Dean, L. M., FiedeLak, J. & Abraham, J. M. (2010). Origins of and solutions for neonatal medication-dispensing errors. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 67(1), 49–57.