Degree Name

Nursing Practice, DNP

Publication Date

12-3-2023

Upload Date

2024

First Advisor

Katharine Camden

Abstract

Medication errors are a growing problem in healthcare systems. Emergency Departments (ED) are especially susceptible to this. Automated dispensing cabinets (ADC) help promote patient safety, but ED nurses commonly override the safety steps built into that workflow. This quality improvement project aims to reduce the number of medication overrides in three rural emergency departments. Data was compiled for the six months before the education and then for the four-week time frame post-education. Education was developed concerning the effects of medication override and errors were presented to all ED nursing staff at the three facilities. Implementation occurred over four weeks and was guided by the Iowa Model. Following implementation, chi-square analysis was used to look for statistical significance in the data. The cross-tabulation tables were constructed and demonstrated significant decreases in both patient override experiences and override pulls. This was the expected result as continuing education should present an improvement in conditions. This data demonstrates that the education of nurses made them more effective and mindful of patient safety by following protocol concerning the pulling of medications. The results demonstrate that education should be continued across the entire health system.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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