Reference no: EM131812833

Please answer this discussion post with a minimum of two paragraphs, APA Style, cited with a minimum of two journals (less than 5yrs old), and no plagiarism.

Errors in medication happen to be among the most common adverse situations in the field of healthcare services. Drug safety is a term that is used to refer to the science involved in collecting, detecting, assessing, monitoring and preventing the adverse impacts of the pharmaceutical products. As a nurse, it is essential to make sure that drug safety is enhanced at all time. One approach that is used in making sure that this happens is by enhancing the practice environment.

One of the ways of applying this drug safety approach is by offering a supportive practice environment. In this case, there is the need for enhanced teamwork between the personnel who are involved. They entail the nurses, pharmacists and the physicians (Jeffs et al., 2013). In addition to that, there is the need for enhanced opportunities for the nurses to take part in decision-making. This is a strategy that is aimed at making sure that the various decisions that are arrived at continue enhancing the safety of the patients at all times.

It is also essential to have continued education opportunities for the members of the profession. In this case, it is normally seen that as time goes by, there is the need to enhance the skills that a person originally had before. A nurse is not needed to be involved in activities such as the administering of a drug which he or she does not seem to be familiar with. Accurate as well as the current drug information needs to be availed to all caregivers within a healthcare setting.

Adequate information needs to be enhanced within a healthcare setting. For this case, most of the drug safety issues are as a result of miscommunication among the various healthcare providers. As a means of countering this challenge, there is the need to enhance effective communication between the team members (Boysen, 2013).

A common method that is used in this scenario is the SBAR (situation, background, assessment, and recommendations). The impact of the use of the improved practice environment approach is that it goes a long way in eliminating the various instances of errors. This means that the various consequences that arise from these errors are also minimized.

References

Jeffs, L., Acott, A., Simpson, E., Campbell, H., Irwin, T., Lo, J., ... & Cardoso, R. (2013). The value of bedside shift reporting enhancing nurse surveillance, accountability, and patient safety. Journal of nursing care quality, 28(3), 226-232.

Boysen, P. G. (2013). Just culture: a foundation for balanced accountability and patient safety. The Ochsner Journal, 13(3), 400-406.