Capstone Project

Jacquelyn Harris. Nightingale college. BSN 485. Linda trout PhD, MSN, RN.

[Audio] The first step in providing quality care for patients in ICU is ensuring their safety. Ensuring the safety of a patient entails ensuring the treatment is provided smoothly with the best chance of a favorable outcome. The damages are because the patients in ICU receive more drugs when compared to the patients in other units. Since most patients in ICU are either unconscious or drowsy, they cannot monitor the side effects of the medications administered by healthcare professionals..

[Audio] ICUs are generally prone to human errors, which pose a risk for ICU patients. The patients admitted to the ICU face an average of 1.7 medical mistakes daily, which puts them in a life-threatening position. The mistakes in an ICU can be significantly reduced by placing measures to improve the medical process. One such effort is gauging the level of knowledge healthcare professionals have on administering medicine in the ICU. This step will likely lead to fewer errors when administering medication and, as a result, save the lives of more patients and improve the overall quality of healthcare in the ICU..

[Audio] Medication errors affect quality healthcare services, affecting every department, including the intensive care unit ( Di Muzio et al., 2017). Evidence-based practice effectively eliminates medication errors: in the healthcare sector, especially in the intensive care unit. Data will be obtained from secondary sources from reputable electronic databases; CINAHL, OVID, and PubMed. Evidence-based and peer-reviewed articles will be obtained using keywords; safety, medication, drugs, medication errors, intensive care unit, root cause analysis, healthcare quality, and technology. The articles obtained include those published within five years..

[Audio] Although medical errors are unintentional, they still substantially impact patients and their families. To prevent this, the expected outcomes are the following: Digital Order Entry systems – The focus of implementing them is to reduce mistakes during manual prescription. Digital Communication Systems – When the communication systems in a hospital are digitalized, it provides room for the patient to know when their medical examination are ready notifies the patients about their appointments and bills, they need to pay. Computerized Intravenous ( IV) Systems – The Automated IV gears aid in controlling the drips and doses administered to the patients, thus reducing the chances of human error in ICU. Additional Staff – To reduce medical errors, the hospital should consider hiring new employees to minimize the work assigned to each nurse and reduce their chances of burning out. Wages for consultants – Outsourcing monitoring labor to experts will vastly reduce the medical errors in hospitals ( Rodziewicz., 2021)..

[Audio] The first step in reducing medical errors in the ICU is implementing workable data entry software. Computerized data entry improves accuracy, thus reducing medical errors ( Moudgil et al., 2021). To accomplish this plan, the following considerations have to be met: identifying the requirements of the data entry systems, comparing different software, undertaking a cost analysis, investing in the software, and installing the system. Nurses are prone to make mistakes for several reasons, such as too much workload, sleep deprivation, or burnout. Clinical administrators should create a conducive working environment for the nurses by reducing their workload, hence providing room for minimal medical errors ( Wondmieneh et al., 2020). Investing in the digital systems and, at the same time, delegating specific tasks to each nurse is the plan in this regard..

[Audio] The total cost of digitalizing the systems will be approximately $ 650. There is a need to invest in secure mobile communication application software, and the system will cost roughly $ 850. Thirdly, introducing the Computerized IV systems will make it easier for the physician to administrate the exact amount of IV fluids required by the patient, which will cost approximately $ 3,000. To reduce burnout from the physicians in charge, the hospital should set aside an approximate $ 3,750 to hire new nurses. Lastly, investing in safety consultants and external monitoring will aid in the reduction of errors encountered in Intensive Care units. A budget of approximately $ 2,200 will be equally divided among the four consultants..

[Audio] To effectively reduce the prevalence of medication errors in the ICU setting, two main approaches will be utilized to address the role of both humans and machines in the incidence of the problem. The first strategy that will be used will be the training of the ICU nursing staff on proper practices to avoid medication errors, including prescribing, omission, and inappropriate administration errors. This will be achieved by facilitating the nurses to obtain certification for adult critical care. This will equip the nurses with the necessary competencies to avoid human-associated wrong administration and wrong time administration errors and prescribing errors in the ICUs ( Lim et al., 2020). Secondly, there will be testing and upgrading aged ICU equipment to reduce machine-induced medication errors. This action will ensure that ICU nurses receive accurate feedback from life support equipment before undertaking activities that may affect the patient's health..

[Audio] The main objective of implementing this strategy is to reduce the prevalence of medication errors in the ICUs at the facility. The desirable outcomes will be reduced ICU patient fatalities associated with medication errors arising from faulty equipment and nurse errors and improved recovery rates for ICU patients ( Pfrimmer et al., 2017; Lim et al., 2020). The evaluation of the outcomes of the strategies will be determined by comparing the number of medication error-related ICU patient fatalities and discharges 30 days after the upgrading of the ICU medical equipment and with nurses who have completed CCRN training with the number of medication error-induced ICU patient fatalities and discharges before the nurses leave for continuing competency training and upgrading of the ICU medical equipment. This comparison will give a complete evaluation of the efficacy of the strategies in mitigating medication errors in the ICU and relate it directly with the implications on patient outcomes..

REFERENCES. A doctor talking to a patient. Di Muzio, M., De Vito, C., Tartaglini, D., & Villari, P. (2017). Knowledge, behaviours, training, and attitudes of nurses during preparation and administration of intravenous medications in intensive care units (ICU). A multicenter Italian study. Applied Nursing Research , 38 , 129-133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apnr.2017.10.002 Lim, F., Chen, L., & Salina, A. (2020). CCRN® certification: Why it matters. Nursing2020 Critical Care , 15 (3), 38-41. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.CCN.0000654824.32618.d6 Moudgil, K., Premnath, B., Shaji, J. R., Sachin, I., & Piyari, S. (2021, April 20). A prospective study on medication errors in an intensive care unit. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8100779/ Pfrimmer, D. M., Johnson, M. R., Guthmiller, M. L., Lehman, J. L., Ernste, V. K., & Rhudy, L. M. (2017). Surveillance: A nursing intervention for improving patient safety in critical care environment. Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing , 36 (1), 45-52. Rodziewicz, T. L., Houseman, B., & Hipskind, J. E. (2021, January 4). Medical error reduction and prevention - StatPearls - NCBI bookshelf. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499956/ Wondmieneh, A., Alemu, W., Tadele, N., & Demis, A. (2020). Medication administration errors and contributing factors among nurses: A cross sectional study in tertiary hospitals, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. BMC Nursing , 19 (1). doi:10.1186/s12912-020-0397-0.