Nursing Responsibility Of Medication Administration

Nursing Responsibility of Medication Administration

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Nursing Responsibility of Medication Administration

According to the rules, regulations, and policies of the (American Nursing Association – ANA, 2019), nurses are not only concerned about the provision of health care services to the patients, especially in the Medication Administration. While they have a number of responsibilities in their jobs which they need to fulfill. In addition, the nurses also have the authority dispense, compound, and administer the medications as well as they are required to administer medications in a safe manner.

In short, the main responsibilities of nurses in the Medication Administration are explained below.

Nurses have the responsibility to administer all of the medications in accordance with their key scope of practice.

Nurses (in the medication administration) needs to be fully knowledgeable about every effect and side effects of the medications they are involved with the provision of. As well as they possess the duty to be familiar with the interactions of medications and required to take necessary actions.

Nurses are the healthcare professionals who need to follow all seven rights of medications administration at the hospitals while providing treatment to patients. The seven rights are; 1) right medication, 2) right dose, 3) right patient or client, 4) right time, 5) right reason, 6) right route, and 7) right and fine documentation (Ronda, & Mary, 2019).

Nurses should determine that each of the orders of an individual (patient) are complete, clear, legal, current, and relevant or appropriate for the patient before the administration of any medication.

In case of having no alternative or an alternate solution, nurses have to administer the medication by using pharmacy dispensing label. This should be used as an order after the confirmation that administering the medication is still relevant and fully appropriate.

Nurses are responsible to act on the pre-printed orders at the time when the concerned healthcare professional; has finalized the client-specific orders. Hence, nurses should review those orders, add names of patients, add dates, and then customize them based on signing.

Nurse have to and this is one of the critical and crucial responsibilities of nurses to act on the telephonic and verbal orders only in the case when the situation need doing so. Or at the time when no other reasonable option or way is there.

According to (Ronda, & Mary, 2019), nurses should administer only those medications which have been prepared by them or by a pharmacist, except in case of emergency.

It is an additional but an important responsibility of nurses that they should educate each and every client or patient about all of their medication while do not share the way of administering that medication.

Based on the evidence from (Ronda, & Mary, 2019), nurses should know and understand the systems and all human factors involved in the medication administration. The factors that increase the errors in medication administration and should take every possible step to get prevented from those factors.

Only those orders should be verified by the nurses in the medication administration which pharmacy labels have been completed from every aspect. In this, nurses also have the responsibility to ensure the completion of pharmacy labels by making sure that the names of clients, medication names, the dosage of medication, strengths and effects of medication as well as frequency and route through the medication are / will be administered.

At the time when an error in medication occur or near-miss happens in the process of compounding, prescribing, dispensing, and/or administering any medication, nurses need to take every possible step at the moment for the purpose to resolve the concern or occurrence (Berdot, et.al, 2016). In addition, nurses are also required to report the error in a timely and proper manner.

Beyond the above, nurses also have additional responsibilities. Those responsibilities are described below

The Physician Order

The nurses are tasked with administering treatment in accordance with the prescription written by the physicians. Nurses can use the medication administration record (MAR) to better manage their workload. Moreover, it would enable nurses to easily manage the relevant information of each patient, their prescribed medication, and the right amount of dosage. Furthermore, the nurses would be assisted in knowing the frequency of administering medication in a single day and the method of administering medication on the patient (Berdot, et.al, 2016).

Patient Identification

The importance of the role which nurses play cannot be undermined. Nurses are central in delivering effective health care services to the patients. As we are familiar that nurses carry out physicians order to administer treatment on the patient. However, prior to the administering of treatment nurses carry out verification of patient identity. A nurse can become a scourge for the patient if they misidentify a patient and administer treatment of any patient to some other patient (Ronda, & Mary, 2019). To avoid errors in identification nurses should always tally the patient’s wristband with the information stored in medication administration record (MAR).

Furthermore, there are several rights that have been enshrined in the medical facility guidelines that facilitate the safe administration of treatment. For instance, it is the right of a nurse to get their hand on the information that is easily read, clearly states the required treatment, dosage, frequency and time. Moreover, it is the right of the nurse to get their hands on to the right medication and information of the medication in order to ensure patient safety.

References

Berdot, S., Roudot, M., Schramm, C., Katsahian, S., Durieux, P., & Sabatier, B. (2016). Interventions to reduce nurses’ medication administration errors in inpatient settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 53, 342-350.

Ronda G. & Mary A. (2019).Nursing Responsibility in the Administration of Medications: some thoughts about a safe practice with care quality. PubMed - NCBI. Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 27 September 2019, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12040803

ANA. (2019). ANA Enterprise | American Nurses Association. Retrieved 27 September 2019, from https://www.nursingworld.org/