Nurse Distractions Journal of Nursing

Factors Influencing Nurse Medication Errors

Tags: medication medication errors nurse distractions

This article explores the medication errors and the phenomena of nurse distractions. Nurses are intimately involved in the medication administration process. Even though the parameters of selection, dosing, compounding, and dispensing medication remain under the purview of other allied health professionals, the nurse represents the last safety checkpoint between the medication and the patient and efforts should be directed toward removing obstacles which are negatively impacting this process. It has long been suspected that nursing distractions whether by patient, family, coworkers or others, are facilitating the occurrence of errors in the hospital setting. There are practices which are discussed which may ameliorate this threat to some extent if employed consistently and judiciously.