Registered nurses, as members of the healthcare team, have a critically important role in ensuring patent safety, including medication safety. In Australia, the safety of the patient is a practice guided by a numb how standard 4 medication safety applies to nurseser of established standards. This response essay examines a scenario where a graduate registered nurse covers the patient load for registered nurses X. In doing this, the graduate registered nurses noted a medical error and reported it to the registered nurse X. This essay aims at explaining how standard 4 medication safety applies to this scenario.
Medication errors are the second most reported incidents within the healthcare institutions in Australia. According to the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (2017), medication incidents occur as a result of medicines administered in error and drug-containing prescribing errors. Errors in the administration of medications occur as a result of the wrong drug, wrong patient, the wrong dose of drugs, wrong route of administering drug or wrong time of administering drugs (Tariq & Scherbak, 2019). Each of these actions goes against the rights of medication administration, which are the right patient, the right drug, the right dose, the right route, and the right time. In relation to this scenario, medication safety standards can be applied by the health service organization to reduce the rate of medication incidents as well as improve the quality and safety of medicine use. To achieve this organization can focus on clinical governance as well as quality improvement to provide support to medication management Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (2017). The organization has the responsibility of integrating systems to support and promote safety for procuring, Storing, prescribing, dispensing, and administering medicines to its patients. Applying quality improvement systems ensures that medication errors are avoided, and health professionals are well equipped to effectively administering drugs.
Another way that the standard 4 medication applies to this scenario pertains to medication management processes. The organization is supposed to minimize medicine-related risks by identifying as well as safely managing processes concerning high-risk medicines (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2017).
The Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation (2016) requires nurses to ensure that all intravenous are checked by two personnel before they are administered to patients. This personnel must be authorized based on the qualification provided by this federation. Every registered nurse has a duty of practicing quality use of medications according to the standards provided by this standard. In regards to this scenario, the intravenous medication error could have been avoided if it was checked by authorized personnel before it was administered. Errors in the administration of intravenous medications have the capacity to cause severe harm to patients, including death and health complications (Fekadu et al., 2017). Furthermore, Vrbnjak et al. (2016) report that the medication management process should provide guidance for the nurses on how to report medication errors. This is necessary to improve the quality of care provided to the patients.
Reporting error is crucial to error prevention. Koohestani (2015) reports that reporting medication errors leads to improvement in safety as well as providing valuable information on how they can be prevented in the future. However, limited clinical experience of nursing graduates may limit their ability to report medication errors (Bagheri-Nesami et al., 2015). In regards to this, ensuring that RN graduates have the appropriate knowledge and skills in reporting medication errors is essential as it will assist to create a safe environment. It is also important that the organization ensure that RN graduates are encouraged to report medical incidents.
In conclusion, medication standards are a crucial component in the provision of healthcare. Every organization is required to implement the medication management process in its system so that it can protect the safety of the patients. The medication management process assists to minimize the occurrence of medicine-related incidents as well as the potential of patient harm from medicines. This process also guarantees that health professional administers medicines in a competent manner and promote incident reports.
Discuss organizational culture in a health care organization and explore factors that would contribute to a positive organizational culture.
Organizational culture can be defined as a set of shared mental assumptions that effectively guide interpretation and behavior (Mannion & Davies, 2018). It has a significant impact on the survival and performance of the healthcare organization as well as the growth and welfare of its employees.
An organization culture helps to create a workplace that promotes sustained performance as well as professional growth in health institutions. The adopted culture in health organization determines how employees collaborate, adherence to value-oriented teamwork as well as pursue the best performance (Zachariadou et al., 2015). It is also a crucial element of implementing care coordination, and it is expected that culture should guide health institutions in achieving its mission and vision. In Australia, it is expected that the mission and vision of health organizations adhere to the ACSQHC standards that are developed to ensure that expected standards of safety and quality are met when providing care to the patients (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2017).
The culture of a healthcare organization plays a crucial role in ensuring that workers are provided a safe and quality care environment. However, several factors determine the presence of a positive organizational culture. These include general job satisfaction, staffing levels, public perceptions, the experience of services, and change in health policy. Rovithis et al. (2016) report that nurses’ perception of organizational culture greatly influences their ability to provide quality care. Where the culture of a healthcare organization is ineffective, it may contribute to different challenges within the organization hence affecting the ability to meet the standards of safe and quality care. For instance, Jafree et al., (2015) report that there is a strong relationship between organizational culture and the culture of error reporting. According to the findings of these authors, all the categories of organizational culture are positively connected to the increased likelihood of error reporting culture. These categories include nurses staffing and resource, nurse manager ability and support, the participation of nurses in hospital affairs, and nurse foundations of quality care.
When nurses are provided with positive organizational culture, studies show that they become more committed to a culture of error sharing and error reporting. This, in turn, improves the safety of the patient and decreases mortality rates. A favorable organization culture exists where there is satisfactory co-worker communication, effective nursing care plans, adequacy in resources and staffing as well as increased levels of nurse autonomy. Therefore, adopting an effective organizational culture help to increase the competency of professionals in healthcare organizations. According to Vrbnjak et al. (2016), it is important to develop a non-punitive, non-blaming, and non-fearing culture at both unit and organizational level as a way of overcoming barriers to reporting medication errors. It cannot be expected that nurses will be ready to report medication errors in punitive, blaming, and fearful culture. It is important that nurses greatly trust the management to minimize their fear of reporting medication errors. Managers in the healthcare organization should accept that most medication errors arise due to the system, rather than single nurses. This means that organizations should focus on a collaborative approach to create a solution for the systems (Beardsmore & McSherry, 2017). In addition, nurses should be aware that reporting all medication is necessary so that the organization can increase its safety.
In conclusion, the culture of the organization plays a significant role in determining how the organization operates. A non-punitive, non-blaming, and non-fearing culture increases the willingness of nurses to report medication errors in a healthcare organization. Culture also determines how employees collaborate, adherence to value-oriented teamwork as well as pursue the best performance.
Should Registered Nurse X need to have a notification made to AHPRA in regards to this incident
Registered health professionals are legally required to make notifications to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, where they have a reasonable belief that another health professional is involved in notifiable conduct (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2020). This agency outlines the guidelines that are supposed to be followed by health professionals in making notifications. This response essays analyze whether the registered nurse x was supposed to make a notification to AHPRA about the intravenous medication error.
The nursing and midwifery board of Australia outlines the codes of conduct that healthcare professionals are supposed to adhere to. It defines codes as the legal requirements, conduct expectations, and professional behavior for all nurses practicing in Australia (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2019). Under the regulation established, nurses are required to report medication to the nursing and midwifery Board of Australia. The AHPRA and the national boards consider every notification crucial as they have a responsibility for ensuring that only practitioners who are skilled and qualified to provide safe care (Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, 2016). Reporting incidents is crucial in ensuring that the safety of the patient is maintained. Every registered nurse is expected to follow these regulations.
The national registration and accreditation scheme for the health professionals that was introduced in 2010 legally requires all registered practitioners to report any other registered practitioner who behaves in a way that constitutes notifiable conduct (Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency 2016). Under national law, notifiable conduct may occur under some conditions. These include where the practitioner has placed the patient at risk of harm. According to the AHPRA and National Boards, mandatory notifications may be triggered when there is a significant departure from accepted professional standards. To report notifiable conduct, practitioners must first have a reasonable belief that the action constitutes notifiable conduct.
A reasonable belief should not be based on mere suspicion but a stronger level of knowledge. In general, reasonable belief may entail observation or direct knowledge of the behavior, which leads to the notification (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2020). On the contrary, rumors, speculation, or gossip are not adequate to form a reasonable belief. In regards to this scenario, the graduate RN has a reasonable belief about the intravenous medication error. The graduate RN needs to feel secure and not concerned about the consequences of the notification.
In conclusion, making notifications is one of the legal responsibilities of registered health practitioners. However, this must be done where there exists a reasonable belief. The organization should also create an environment that encourages health practitioners to carry make a notification about medication errors.