Preventing Medication Errors

Course Overview

This Course provides an update on medication administration and calculations, as well as a reminder for all healthcare professionals on how we can avoid making medication errors and potentially causing adverse patient outcomes.

Topics

• The extent of medication-related problems;
• Strategies for improving medication safety and administration;
• Medication calculations.

Need

Medicine use can be associated with harm, and the common use of medicines means they are associated with more errors and adverse events than any other aspect of healthcare.

There is a need for formal education on the prevention of medication errors as the prevalence of medication errors is of particular concern, and evidence shows the majority of these errors are preventable.

Purpose

The purpose of this Course is to enable registered nurses and other health professionals to identify factors that may contribute to medication errors, in order to reduce the incidence of these errors and ensure that adverse and unwanted effects on patients are minimised.

Learning Outcomes

• Identify the potential risks associated with medication errors in order to prevent adverse events.
• Improve patient safety by applying relevant rules and strategies to reduce the potential for medication errors.
• Calculate medicine doses accurately to ensure safe administration of medications in clinical practice.

Target Audience

All registered nurses and other health professionals who regularly administer medications to patients.

Disclosure

No conflict of interest exists for anyone in the position to control content for this activity. Wherever possible, generic or non-proprietary names of medications or products have been used.

Educator

Tracy Edwards

Tracy Edwards is a Nurse Practitioner who works in the emergency department at Modbury Public Hospital in South Australia. In this role, she works in a “see and treat” model of care. She also works with the rapid assessment team, where she is required to fulfil both clinical and educational duties. Tracy has experience as a practice nurse and has held other management positions, including acting quality and clinical risk manager. Tracy is particularly interested in vascular health and has run several extra vocational programs focused on the prevention of cardiovascular disease. Tracy was a finalist in the "future leader" category for the South Australian Nursing and Midwifery Awards 2011 and won a South Australian Premiers Travelling Scholarship in 2011/12. See Educator Profile