Called into question

Nurses maintain responsibility for knowing enough about medications to question erroneous orders or identify areas of concern.

✓ Define the termsprescribe, dispense,andadminister.

Nurses’ responsibility for medication administration includes ensuring that the right medication is properly drawn up in the correct dose, and administered at the right time through the right route to the right patient. To limit or reduce the risk of administration errors, many hospitals employ a single-dose system. But this system prevents nurses from becoming familiar with the medication they administer, as well as from verifying the dose or patient identification.

Poor physician penmanship can cause caregivers to misread or misunderstand the written order, resulting in medication errors. Mistakes can also occur during transcription, when nurses enter the order into the medication administration record. Here, there’s the potential for misinterpretation of the drug’s name, dosage, route or frequency, or inadvertent omission from the medication administration records. To help eliminate risk exposures, each facility should establish and communicate policies and procedures for its nurses to follow.

✓ These policies and procedures should include what details?

When faced with questionable medication orders, caregivers have a duty to address all concerns. When a nurse fails to question improper medication orders prescribed by a physician, the court system holds both the nurse and the ordering physician accountable for resultant patient injury. To avoid liability, any nurse in this situation should document the fact that he or she questioned the order and received the physician’s assurance that it was correct. Also include the individual’s name that approved the questionable order.

From: https://journals.lww.com/nursingmanagement/pages/default.aspx