What impact would an incorrect calculation have on patient care?
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What impact would an incorrect calculation have on patient care?
The incorrect calculation led to a dosage over four times higher than the intended dose. This is an example where one error can be further compounded and magnified by subsequent errors. There are several cases where incorrect dosages for pediatric patients have resulted in serious injury or death.
What are the common mistakes that occur during calculating drug dosages?
Common errors by nurses include the following: Not understanding the units of measurements for medication, for example “nanograms” and “micrograms”; Using the wrong equipment to measure dosages; Making slips in calculations that result in the wrong dose or rate of medicine being administered (NPSA, 2009a; 2009b).
Why is it important to correctly calculate medication dosages?
Accurate pharmacy calculations prevent medical errors; underdosing a patient may lead to inadequate treatment, and overdosing a patient may lead to drug toxicity.
What are some unexpected outcomes related to IV administration?
Additional complications may include nerve or tissue damage, medication being absorbed too fast or too slow, wrong location for the medication, pain, bleeding, or a sterile abscess (Perry et al., 2014).
What are the potential consequences of poor practice when administering medication?
While it could be the result of systemic issues or plain human error, medication errors can cause severe physical injury and possible death to patients. These preventable mistakes could also cause severe financial, psychological, and emotional stress to the healthcare provider and organisation.
What kinds of errors do nurses make regarding the administration of medications?
The frequently perpetrated types of MAEs include wrong dose, wrong time, wrong drug, wrong route, omission of doses, wrong patient, lack of documentation, and technical errors [8,9,10,11].
Why is it important that healthcare professionals can calculate intravenous drip rates?
Without knowing how to administer and monitor medicines and intravenous therapy it is not possible to perform this task. Status of liver and kidney function has to be checked before calculating dose of a particular medicine. This is yet another reason why nurses need to learn drug calculation formulas.
What are the dangers of carelessness in compounding?
In addition, poor compounding practices can result in serious drug quality problems, such as contamination or a drug that contains too much active ingredient. This can lead to serious patient injury and death.
What are two major risk of IV administration of medication?
Damage to veins and injection site Infiltration can cause tissue damage. IV administration can also cause phlebitis, or inflammation of your veins.
What are the four common complications of administering anything IV?
The most common include:
- Phlebitis. Inflammation of the vein.
- Extravasation. This happens when the liquid in the IV leaks to the tissue surrounding the vein.
- Air Embolism. This happens when an air bubble (or air bubbles) enters the vein.
- Hypervolaemia. This is an abnormal increase in blood volume.
- Infection.
What is the risk of medication administration?
Wrong dose, missing doses, and wrong medication are the most commonly reported administration errors. Contributing factors to patient and caregiver error include low health literacy, poor provider–patient communication, absence of health literacy, and universal precautions in the outpatient clinic.
How do you calculate medication errors?
The equation for calculating a medication error rate is as follows: Medication Error Rate = Number of Errors Observed divided by the Opportunities for Errors (doses given plus doses ordered but not given) X 100.
What are the risks of administering medication?
Risk areas of medication administration
- Allergic reactions with antibacterial drugs.
- Intravenous administration of antibacterial drugs.
- Fentanyl patches (removal old one before applying new)
- Checking and documenting of analgesic doses.
- Checking doses of anticoagulants.
- Insulin doses and blood glucose.
What factors do you need to consider when calculating medication dosages?
There are 3 primary methods for calculating medication dosages; Dimensional Analysis, Ratio Proportion, and Formula or Desired Over Have Method.
Why Do pharmacists have a coworker check the formulas for compounded medications?
A pharmacist reviews the prescription to be sure the medication, strength, dose and directions for use are all appropriate. This step is one of many “checks” that are built into the process of making compounded medicines, to be sure everything is correct every step of the way.
What are some of the factors that must be considered before compounding a prescription medication?
What are some of the factors that must be considered before compounding a prescription medication? A. cost-effectiveness, availability, solubility, and stability.
