Reducing medication administration errors in emergency medical services through the implementation of a verbal verification method

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Issue Date
2015-04-07
Embargo End Date
Authors
Madi, Maha
Advisor
Citation
Abstract

Healthcare reform is a reoccurring issue that is common to legislatures across the country. Policy changes to healthcare affect everyone and in order to better provide for the citizens of the State agreements must be made on the type of reform that is needed. Reforming healthcare in the United States includes improving the access and quality of care provided to citizens. In order to improve the quality of care, medication errors need to be minimized in the healthcare field. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) professionals evaluate over 36 million people a year with over 16 million of these people transported to hospitals for additional care. Thousands of these people are prone to preventable medication administration errors made by providers. One of the many causes of these errors is in the way EMS professionals verify the drugs they are administering. The current verification method in place, is known as the 5 Rights method, has been questioned since no empirical data exists to support it. The 5 Rights method is a mental verification susceptible to fallibility of human processing. Currently we are studying the effects of a new Medication Administration Cross-Check (MACC) on the frequency of medication administration errors. We hypothesize that the introduction of the MACC will significantly reduce medication administration errors compared to prior MACC implementation. By implementing MACC, the quality of the administration of healthcare in Kansas can be greatly improved.

Table of Content
Description
Second place winner of poster presentations at the 15th Annual Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Forum (URCAF) held at the Hughes Metropolitan Complex, Wichita State University, April 7, 2015.
publication.page.dc.relation.uri
DOI