Medications Administration Assignment Sample

Receipt

Record the payment of an invoice that helps to know the cost of every service that is provided. This is proof of when the medicine is purchased.  

Administration

Maintaining all the rules and regulations carefully in medicine administration. This reduces medicine errors.   

Disposal

Damaged carefully before disposed and care should be taken to insure that it is not used illegally.

Documentation

Helps in further treatment of the patient.

High level of accuracy.

Reports of medicines and the health of the patient can be accessible.

Comprehensiveness.

Keeping up-to-date information.

Including the patient's important clinical data, medical history, demographics, treatment plans, allergies, test reports etc.  

Correct Recording

Up-to-date information.

Including vital signs.

Signatures

Clear and with the date. Helps to know who authorized this and under whom and when the treatment procedure happens.   

This helps the healthcare professional to know the current health situation of the patient as well as helps the physicians to understand which and how much of the medicine is effective for the patient. If any unfamiliar indent happens, caregivers can provide the most suitable process to the patient (Schulz et al. 2019).

In relation to each individual

Rechecking previous medical reports, provided medications and their strength and dosage carefully for each patient.

Comparing the medical reports, records as well as the external list of medications while assessing new medicines (medical reconciliation) (Syakur et al. 2020).

Information Shared about an individual’s medication needs

The proper name, genre, strength and dosage (when and how the medicines should be taken) of the medicine. The healthcare professionals must pay attention to the condition of health of the patient, his/her age while prescribing the medicines.

When an individual transfers to another service or care setting

If the patient is admitted to such a healthcare organization where he/she cannot get the proper treatment, the patient must be transferred.

If the health of the patient deteriorates at the place where he/she is admitted, the patient is also referred to another better place for receiving better care (Eukel et al. 2017).

1. Personal choice of the individual.

2. List of the medicines’ name, dosage and strength.

3. Whether the habit of smoking and drinking alcohol.

4. Carefully take accurate doses at the correct time or not.

5. Condition of health before and after taking the medicines.

6. Manual dexterity or mental capacity.

7. The storage system of medicines.

8. Any allergic reaction after taking any particular medicine. 

9. Maintaining the expiry date and dosage of the medicines (Sharifi et al. 2017). 

Role of the Pharmacist

Supervise and maintain the medicines supply chain.

Confirm pharmacy places and managements are accurate for the purposes.

Advise safe and secure supply of medicines.

Tell the healthcare professionals and physicians about the effective use of medicines. 

Assessing the quality of the medicines before supplying. 

Maintaining the production as well as preparation of the medicines.

Confirming the supply of medicines while maintaining governmental rules and regulations.

Pharmacists act as the bridge between the patients and physicians and ensure that the patient must not take any wrong dose of medicines or incorrect medicines.

The side effects of medicines are guided by the pharmacists as well as they can warn the patient about the interaction of medicines and alcohol consumption and smoking.

Patient's safety is the first priority of the physicians. They can advise about the allergic reaction of a particular drug.

They can take various effective steps against the unauthorized marketing of medicines as the main purpose of this business other than the cure of patient’s health. 

For managing stocks pharmacists try to keep proper inventory, decrease inventory stockpiling, expired, dead or slow products are removed, motivate and encourage pharmacy technicians, maintain product quality, engage with doctors and patients, manage regular reviews etc. 

Manufacturer’s instructions

Store the medicines and drugs in the thermoregulator place as every drug has a particular temperature in which the medicine and its effectiveness do not reduce or damage.

Each pharmaceutical centre must contain trained staff.

Maintaining hygiene is another essential.

Staff must wear protective working garments while entering the storage area.

Maintaining a record is necessary to handle expired medicines.

Maintaining the record of each purchase.

Labelling is important.

Medicines must be kept in a clean, dry and germs free area and carefully noted that every medicine must not be altered with each other.

Don't keep the medicines directly on the floor.

Careful about the sunlight and oxygen. Ventilation is important.

Adequate light and passage help to make operations accurately.

Medicines that need low temperature must be kept in the refrigerator or stored in any ice-cold storage.

Organisational policies

Maintaining safety and security while storing the medicines.

Strictly follow the medical policy.

Effectively deliver medicines to the patients according to the instruction of healthcare professionals.

Paying attention to the transaction of medicines.

Maintaining strict steps against illegal works that are related to medicines.  

Inspection and external audit legal requirements

Regular inspection and investigation are essential to maintain the storage and efficiency of medicines. Expired medicines must be removed. Illegal and unauthorized use of medicines (besides the purpose of treatment) can be reduced with this. 

The medicines-related safeguarding incident is excellently described by The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) and this denotes that the safeguarding problems that can be occurred because of managing medicines must include the inappropriate use of medicines other than the beneficial effect on patient's health, the measured and considered suppression of medicine without an effective purpose, careful steps to harm or damage by using medicines and the unfavourable situations or any accidental damage that can be caused by medication error and incorrect or improper administration.

The medicine-related safeguarding incident consists of various processes. 

Step 1: procedures for safeguarding as well as managing medicines errors.

Step 2: attentively record and report the situations that are associated with medicines errors and safeguarding.

Step 3: identifying and analyzing the main cause of the situation.

Step 4: overviewing and managing medicines as well as make and execute strategies to reduce and prevent medicines errors and how to deal with any unfavourable situation if it happens.  

Step 5: providing good and effective pieces of training to staff.

Different medicines-related safeguarding incident

Medicines must be given to the right patient. Carefully recheck the patient's name and medical history. 

Careful about the drug strength and dosage.

Pay more attention while giving medicines to the patient as there are several drugs with the same pronunciation and look-alike. 

Check the expiry date of medicines before delivering them to the patient.

Reporting and recording requirements

Caregivers should maintain the instruction of physicians while giving medicines to the patient.

Attentively note down the changes in the health of the patient during the course.

If any mistakes happen, caregivers should report medicines inaccuracy without any delay.

Provide information on reporting medicines-related safety incidents and this must contain concerns regarding medicines such as complaints procedure, local safeguarding procedures and applicable regulatory procedure.  

Changes in practice that would be implemented

Must maintain proper details of medicines-related safeguarding incidents.

Improvised training strategy and proper practice help to reduce such errors.

The favourable and strong system that constantly reviews the effectiveness of medicines as well as administration records. Regular audit, as well as a review, can help to increase accuracy such as changing in doses, PRN administration and processing of refusals etc. This helps to reduce such errors. 

Any unfavourable situation that is caused by dispensing or prescribing procedures must be logged in. 

Meetings, discussions etc. help to improve effectiveness in the working capacity as review and outcomes of medications, investigations of issues and errors can be discussed. This helps to reduce/prevent the chance of the same or similar errors.

Implementing a regular schedule and providing members to investigate and review medicine errors and if any action is taken by the team, that must be recorded.

Executing a clear reporting system. Attentively record about the situation and what procedure was implemented for rectifying the critical situation as well as what step should be taken if this kind of situation happens further. 

Maintaining a medication policy helps to understand how to deal with unfavourable situations, medicines errors etc. 

Right individual

Identifying the right patient is the very first necessary as people have the same name (first and last name) and sometimes appearances are also matched. Besides this, doctors and nurses have to carefully identify whether the order goes with the patient. It is very essential in medication administration to identify the right patient and confirm his or her medical history before prescribing medications (Booth et al. 2017).

Right medicine

Medicines must be prescribed after confirming the right patient and according to his/her health issues. Verifying the appropriate medications is essential as there are several drugs in the world that look alike, as well as the name of the medicines, might sound-alike. Need to confirm the medication label goes with the order.

Right route

It is essential to know the right route, which means knowing about the medications and carefully reading the directions for use or the instructions of the physician such as how (mixed with other materials or crushed) and when to take them etc. This is a very important part as the wrong instruction or improper use have a negative impact on health.

Right dose

Calculating the right dose is another essential part. Knowing about the prescribed drugs and what is the proper dose for the patient. Necessary to know about the strength of the prescribed drug according to the health of the patient. Maintaining the dose (whole medicine or half or multiple) is one of the vital rights. Reading the directions and measuring appropriately while taking medications as there are several effects of these such as taking too much medicine can cause harm to health and too little amount will be useless (Hayes et al. 2018).

Right time

Before prescribing any medicine, it is essential to recheck the medical history of the patient. Every medication needs a specific time interval according to the condition of the patient's health. Before administering a medication, it is necessary to confirm the quantified time interval has gone as excess amounts of the same drug potentially affect the patient’s health. 

Right to refuse

In medication administration, the patient has all right to refuse to take the medications. This can happen if several side effects arise in the patient's body while taking the medicine or the patient feels uncomfortable while swallowing it. In this case, it is essential to carefully handle the situation by understanding why he/she doesn’t want to take the medicine and note this. Prescribe another form of drug or different drug that can easily be taken by the patient (Gilmartin et al. 2017). 

Identity of individual

Identifying the right patients is the first important work as there are several persons with the same first name and last name. Besides this, many patients have the same appearance that can create confusing situations. If the patient's name seems identical, it is necessary to check their medical history before prescribing any medication. Maintaining the agency policy for the identification of patients is important.

Medication Administration Record (MAR)

A Medication Administration Record (MAR, or eMAR for the electronic types), generally denoted as the medicine or drug chart. This is the report that is considered as a legal record of the medications and drugs prescribed and monitored to a patient at a competence level by the doctors, nurses and other health care professionals. This is a part of the permanent record of a patient on the health care organization's medical chart. The most important reason for keeping and maintaining the medical records is to confirm permanency and stability of care for the patient. Good medical records are important to the doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals as these help to prescribe further drugs as well as for protecting an objection or clinical carelessness claim. The MAR provides a process on the medical decision being applied at the phase (Aggar et al.2018).

Medication

It is important to go through the medical history of the patient or medication administration record (MAR) before prescribing any drugs or medicines. Need to listen carefully to the patient's problem and understand as well as analyse them before prescribing any medications. There are numerous drugs in the world that are almost identical or their names sound alike. Therefore, carelessness may result in great harm to health.  Besides this, a health care professional has to understand the patient's health condition while giving them medications as the doses and measurements of medicines have a great impact on health. Carefully mention the instructions for taking the medicine such as when and how the medicines should be taken by the patients. Necessary to maintain safety and be careful while preparing medicines. Need to know if a patient has an allergy or any kind of reaction to a particular drug (Hammoudi et al. 2018). Need to be careful about dosages and medication calculation. Prescribing too many medicines can make patients feel uninterested in taking the medicines or they may forget when to take the medicine. 

Equipment

There are several types of medical equipment such as disposable supplies or consumables equipment, diagnostic equipment, testing supplies. Medical equipment that is durable, surgical supplies, acute care equipment, medical equipment for home health care services, electronic devices, diabetic equipment and so on. The most common medical equipment are MRI machines, ultrasound machines, CT scanners, PET scanners and X-ray machines. Diagnostic medical equipment and mainly used to diagnose the health condition of a patient such as several medical imaging machines like an X-ray machine, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, computed tomography, echocardiography, ultrasound etc. There are several medical types of equipment that are used to diagnose a patient's health such as stethoscopes, pulse oximetry, dopers etc. the durable medical equipment including a hospital bed, electric or manual wheelchair, insulin pump, several mobility assistive equipment, oxygen concentrators ventilators, kidney machine, portable oxygen tanks, nebulizer etc. The treatment equipment consists of infusion pumps, surgical machines, medical lasers, surgical caps, gloves, gowns, glasses etc. The life support equipment includes medical ventilators, heart-lung machines, incubators and dialysis machines (Odberg et al. 2019). The medical equipment for laboratory use is the blood collection supplies, chemistry analyzers, electrolyte analyzers, blood gas analyzers, coagulation analyzers, drug testing analyzers, hematology analyzers, microbiological systems, differential counters, urinalysis analyzers etc.  

Environment

Maintaining a calm environment helps both the patient and healthcare professional to carefully discuss the patient's problems and analyze them. The environment is one of the vital factors in medical administration. Consulting with a patient is one of the difficult tasks as the health care professional has to prescribe medication based on the discussions. So a calm and peaceful environment is necessary while discussing the patient's problems. Healthcare professionals have to listen to patient's health issues with care, attention and patience like for an old patient, the health care professional has to consult with him/her more patience and attention as the older person have a tendency to forget but for a child, the healthcare professional has to create the environment in such a way that the child doesn't hesitate to say about his/her issue. Besides this, for female patients, it is essential to provide female Health Care professionals and caregivers that allow the patient to tell her problems without any hesitation and more specifically and accurately.

There are several strategies and methods that help to increase medication administration safety. They are as follows.

Increasing the quality of nursing training and education. Interactive CD-ROM education systems help to develop safe medication practices. The bar-coded medication administration (BCMA) is the most perfect process to reduce administration errors (Bucknall et al. 2019). 

Healthcare professionals must have to confirm the six rights of medication administration.

The procedures for medication reconciliation are carefully followed.

Recheck the procedures several times to reduce the errors.

Document everything, every detail of the patient is noted attentively.

The use of name alerts for the patients whose names are sound-alike can reduce the issues.

Adding a 0 in front of the decimal point.

To maintain the efficacy of the medicines, it is necessary to maintain their temperature and store them carefully.

Maintaining a drug guide (generic names, dosing, interaction between two drugs, therapeutic class etc.) and physician’s instructions.

It is important to follow and maintain the instructions that are written on the preparation and use of medication as every drug can make a potential effect on human health and the effect can be varied with age, health condition and immunity power. Doctors prescribed medicines after understanding the patient's health condition. When he/she prescribes multiple drugs, he/she mentions when and how the medicines should be taken so that the other physical discomforts do not occur as a result of a drug interaction. Following the interactions is essential as too much use of medicines can result in other side effects while too little amount remains inactive on health issues (Sluggett et al. 2020). 

The correct method of administration must be followed as the procedures help to reduce issues. Medication-related issues are the most critical ones as they are related to human health and well-being. The proper method helps to identify the right patient, as well as help to detect his/her health issues accurately and effective treatment and care, can be given to the patient according to his/her health problems. 

Step 1: proper knowledge is required for administering the medicines such as therapeutic use, general dosage, precautions, contradictions, side effects, administration route.

Step 2: maintaining the 5 rights of medication administration. They are identifying the right patient, right medicine, right route, right time and the right dose.

Step 3: maintaining safety and hygiene to prevent infection.

Step 4: pay attention to the patient about his/her needs. Some patients are not comfortable with tablets or solid-dose forms of medicines as they are hard to swallow, liquid formulation might be given instead of this. 

Step 5: carefully check the patient's prescription (name, age, medical history, allergic status, weight, BP).

Step 6: Check the name of the medicines, dosages and strength.

Step 7: maintaining rules and regulations while administering and disposing of the medicine. 

Several critical issues can arise if health caregivers do not follow the instructions provided to you on the preparation and use of medication including the method of administration such as breaking the governmental regulations has a great impact on professional life as well as this incident comes under the clinical carelessness claims and affects the reputation of the healthcare organization. Besides this, various health issues are faced by the patient if he/she takes the medicine and this can be life-threatening (Schnock et al. 2017). 

1. Hand hygiene before a procedure and after the procedure, before and after touching a patient as well as the patient's surroundings. 

2. Use of equipment for personal protection such as masks, gloves, eyewear, gowns.

3. Cleaning the environmental surface with chemical agents. Cleaning up faeces and vomit.

4. Respiratory hygiene.

5. Sharps safety.

6. Sterile medical devices and instruments.

7. Safe injection practices.

It is necessary to pay attention to the patient especially when he/she has taken his/her medicines as the patient may feel uncomfortable while taking the medicine. Many patients have problems swallowing tablets. A stuck in the throat can cause various problems. The patient may not take the medicine properly or may throw it away. 

Medication on the individual

The physical appearance of the patient like speaking posture, sleeping time, walking condition, whether feeling dizzy etc. 

Report of diagnosis like urinalysis, USG, MRI scan, blood sugar level, BP etc.

The condition it has been prescribed for

Prescribed drugs are administered by the physician according to the health condition of the patient. A particular drug has certain effects on selective disease. Patients' problems are noted on the left side of the prescription. Medical and diagnosis reports help to access the disease. 

Previous health conditions, as well as health conditions after taking medications, must be noted to evaluate a patient's health conditions as well as understand the change of medications if needed. Generally, physical appearances such as walking, sleeping, speaking capacity, weight, BP, blood sugar level can be noted. Besides this, extra information can be noted according to the diagnosis report and patient health. This can be varied with health problems and disease or injuries.

All the information including the patient's name, date of birth, age, drug's name, formulation, strength and dosage are noted securely on the MAR. The medical history of the patient is rechecked thoroughly before prescribing any drugs. The outcomes of medications can be checked through several treatments like patients with cardiovascular issues can perform ECGs that help to know the heart rate. 

Medication when required or PRN can be given to the patient in intermittent conditions. These types of medicines can be prescribed to reduce pain, vomiting, nausea, insomnia, anxiety, indigestion etc. patients with long-term problems also require PRN like asthma patients can use inhaled reliever medications. 

1. Note the information of the patient who has administered the dose.

2. Time and date of the dose.

3. Name, formulation, strength and dosage of the controlled drug are recorded.

4. Administrating the dose of the controlled drug.

5. Confirmation of continuing care.

6. Properly maintain the doses, this cannot be duplicated or missed.

7. Provide proper treatment.

Does not take their medication

The condition of the patient's health has become worse. Development of identified diseases as well as various other issues. In this case, caregivers have to handle the situation with care and patience with which the patient can intake the medicine. 

Has difficulty taking medication in the form it has been prescribed

Many patients have problems with the medicine's form like some people cannot swallow tablets or other solid forms of medicines, tablet choked and several problems occur, some people cannot intake liquefied form, and feel nausea. In this case, physicians have to prescribe another form of medicine. 

Errors administering medication

1. Immediately stop.

2. Check the order.

3. Consult with physicians about dosage.

4. Recheck the calculations with other health staff.

5. Inform the patient's family in a critical case.

6. Note the error and inform the safety committee of the hospital. 

Individual declines prescribed medication

Patients have the right to say no to taking a particular medicine. The patient has to understand that it is for his/her own good. If this does not work and the patient has a problem intake it, consult with the physician for changing the medication form or take any effective decision. 

Medication is compromised

Don't take the medicine.

Discrepancies in records

Recheck the computation mistakes.

Review of medications is necessary as this helps the physicians to prescribe more accurate combinations of drugs according to the patient's health condition. Every patient varies biologically so it is essential to review medications. 

Each patient’s record must contain the patient’s name, age, DOB, medical history, prescribed drug’s name with date, change of drugs, health improvement and current health situation as well as ongoing medicines. This helps in further treatment.