NHS-FPX4000 Analyzing A Current Health Care Issue Essay

NHS-FPX4000 Analyzing A Current Health Care Issue Essay

NHS-FPX4000 Analyzing A Current Health Care Issue Essay

Health care facilities should be safe and comfortable settings for patients and care providers. Although it is typical for health care facilities to use multiple strategies to promote safety, care quality, and ethical practices, problems that hamper outcomes often occur. Due to differences in organizations’ preparedness and resource capacity, among other factors, problems that impede positive outcomes impact them differently. As a result, awareness of the problems, the possibility of occurrence, and potential impacts and solutions should be prioritized in all organizations. Interventions should be relevant and problem-centered to achieve the desired effects. The purpose of this paper is to analyze a current problem in health care, its solutions, and possible ethical implications.

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Problem Overview from a Scholarly Perspective

Health care facilities must be committed to achieving high-quality care and ensuring adverse events that hamper patient safety are adequately prevented. Medication errors are a complex problem that burdens the health care system. Commonly, medication errors are unintentional, and different patient groups are impacted differently. Current literature has explored medication errors in-depth to help current and future practitioners understand the problem in detail. Rasool et al. (2020) analyzed the risk factors of medication errors and how various patient groups are affected. The implication is that medication errors’ risk factors and impacts differ with patients’ characteristics. Wondmieneh et al. (2020) evaluated medication errors’ contributing factors. The central observation was that nurses could play a critical role in preventing the avoidable harm. In a different study, Schroers et al. (2021) analyzed the intersection between personal and contextual factors in causing medication errors. Jointly, these articles help to explain medication errors from multiple perspectives, including their preventable nature, risk factors, and prevention strategies. This knowledge is crucial for health care professionals’ creative response to medication errors.

Problem Analysis

A medication error denotes a preventable adverse event related to medication. The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention defines a medication error as a preventable event leading to inappropriate medication use or patient harm (U.S. Food & Drug Administration, 2019). The harm occurs while the medication is in the control of the health care practitioner or the patient. Wondmieneh et al. (2020) found that medication administration errors are the commonest medication errors that threaten patients, nurses, and care facilities. Their high probability of occurrence underlines the need for multiple prevention measures and continuous risk assessment to ensure an effective response.

Nurses are commonly involved in medication errors. They are commonly involved since medication administration is the nurses’ responsibility, which requires approximately 40% of their time (Wondmieneh et al., 2020). As a result, most medication errors can be prevented by ensuring that nurses are optimally prepared and competent to administer medications and guide patients accordingly. Patients can also cause medication errors since they (errors) occur at other points besides administration. A medication error can occur when prescribing a drug or when a patient is taking it (U.S. Food & Drug Administration, 2019). Therefore, medication errors prevention measures must address all possible causes and risk factors.

Medication errors stem from multiple causes, which further underline their complex nature. Nurses’ knowledge, contextual factors, and personal factors can independently or jointly cause a medication error. As Schroers et al. (2021) suggested, the primary cause of medication errors is medication knowledge. The inference is that health care professionals should be competent in all areas of the medication process, including labeling, storage, and correct administration. Besides nurses’ knowledge, contextual factors such as workloads and interruptions contribute significantly to medication errors. Personal factors include complacency and fatigue. Usually, fatigue results from a high workload, which hampers nurses’ concentration, cognition, and desire to embrace teamwork (Alyahya et al., 2021). These causes demonstrate that medication errors are multifactorial hence the need for similar solutions.

Potential Solutions

Medication error prevention requires organizational and individual commitment. One of the effective solutions to address medication knowledge inadequacy is medical staff education. Among nurses and other providers, staff education improves literacy and ensures that health care professionals are adequately competent to handle complex patient care issues. Training can focus on the rights of medication administration and other essentials of medication management. The six rights include the right patient, drug, time, route, dose, and documentation (Wondmieneh et al., 2020). Adherence to them is critical for proper and safe medication administration. The other potential solution is packaging improvements. This implies that all drugs should be appropriately labeled and in the appropriate packaging containers. Patient medication safety training is also important. Nurses can be trained on safe storage and other strategies that improve medication safety.

Ignoring medication errors could have far-reaching consequences on patients, health care practitioners, and the organization. According to Rasool et al. (2021), medication errors increase the risk of adverse drug interactions, hospital admissions, and mortality. Failure to prevent them hampers patient safety and care quality due to health complications and increased outpatient visits. Besides, medication errors increase hospitals’ management costs since they affect revenue generation by increasing costs through prolonged hospitalizations. Nurses may suffer from emotional distress and punitive actions, particularly when a medication error leads to considerable harm (Wondmieneh et al., 2020). These adverse outcomes demonstrate why medication errors cannot be ignored and why their prevention should be an organization’s priority.

Ethical Principles If Solution Was Implemented

Addressing medication errors through medical staff education and other interventions denotes a commitment to improving patient safety. The ethical principle of beneficence obliges health care professionals to act in a way that benefits others. Medication errors prevention aligns with beneficence since it secures patients’ well-being. Non-maleficence is primarily about harm prevention, while autonomy denotes respecting patients’ independent decisions, including values and preferences (Varkey, 2021). Medication error prevention demonstrates non-maleficence since it protects patients from potential harm. Justice entails providing care to those deserving it respectfully and equally. Preventing medication errors can prevent possible emotional distress among nurses. Consequently, nurses would be able to provide competent care characterized by patient-centeredness, equality, and timeliness. Such care aligns with the central tenets of autonomy and justice ethical principles.

Conclusion

Patient safety is a core obligation of health care professionals and organizations. Consequently, there should be adequate measures to identify and respond to issues that hamper patient safety. Medication errors are a significant threat to patients, nurses, and organizations. Causes vary and include knowledge-based, contextual, and personal factors. The multifactorial nature of medication errors necessitates a similar response. As a result, medical staff education, packaging improvements, and patient medication safety training can be used to address medication errors. Addressing the problem is critical to optimal patient safety and ensuring nurses are free from emotional distress stemming from patient harm.

References

Alyahya, M. S., Hijazi, H. H., Alolayyan, M. N., Ajayneh, F. J., Khader, Y. S., & Al-Sheyab, N. A. (2021). The association between cognitive medical errors and their contributing organizational and individual factors. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 415-430. https://doi.org/10.2147/RMHP.S293110

Rasool, M. F., Rehman, A. U., Imran, I., Abbas, S., Shah, S., Abbas, G., … & Hayat, K. (2020). Risk factors associated with medication errors among patients suffering from chronic disorders. Frontiers in Public Health, 8, 531038. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.531038

Schroers, G., Ross, J. G., & Moriarty, H. (2021). Nurses’ perceived causes of medication administration errors: a qualitative systematic review. The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 47(1), 38-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcjq.2020.09.010

U.S. Food & Drug Administration. (2019). Working to reduce medication errors. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-consumers-and-patients-drugs/working-reduce-medication-errors

Varkey, B. (2021). Principles of clinical ethics and their application to practice. Medical Principles and Practice, 30(1), 17-28. https://doi.org/10.1159/000509119

Wondmieneh, A., Alemu, W., Tadele, N., & Demis, A. (2020). Medication administration errors and contributing factors among nurses: a cross sectional study in tertiary hospitals, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. BMC Nursing, 19(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-020-0397-0

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Write a 4-6 page analysis of a current problem or issue in health care, including a proposed solution and possible ethical implications.
Introduction
In your health care career, you will be confronted with many problems that demand a solution. By using research skills, you can learn what others are doing and saying about similar problems. Then, you can analyze the problem and the people and systems it affects. You can also examine potential solutions and their ramifications. This assessment allows you to practice this approach with a real-world problem.
Instructions

Note: The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. At a minimum, be sure to address each point. In addition, you are encouraged to review the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.
Describe the health care problem or issue you selected for use in Assessment 2 (from the Assessment Topic Areas media piece) and provide details about it.

Explore your chosen topic. For this, you should use the first four steps of the Socratic Problem-Solving Approach to aid your critical thinking. This approach was introduced in Assessment 2.

Identify possible causes for the problem or issue.

Use scholarly information to describe and explain the health care problem or issue and identify possible causes for it.
Identify at least three scholarly or academic peer-reviewed journal articles about the topic.
You may find the How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles? library guide helpful in locating appropriate references

You may use articles you found while working on Assessment 2 or you may search the Capella library for other articles.

You may find the applicable Undergraduate Library Research Guide helpful in your search.

Review the Think Critically About Source Quality to help you complete the following:
Assess the credibility of the information sources.

Assess the relevance of the information sources.

Analyze the health care problem or issue.
Describe the setting or context for the problem or issue.

Describe why the problem or issue is important to you.

Identify groups of people affected by the problem or issue.

Provide examples that support your analysis of the problem or issue.

Discuss potential solutions for the health care problem or issue.
Describe what would be required to implement a solution.
Describe potential consequences of ignoring the problem or issue.

Provide the pros and cons for one of the solutions you are proposing.

Explain the ethical principles (Beneficence, Nonmaleficence, Autonomy, and Justice) if potential solution was implemented.
Describe what would be necessary to implement the proposed solution.

Explain the ethical principles that need to be considered (Beneficence, Nonmaleficence, Autonomy, and Justice) if the potential solution was implemented.

Provide examples from the literature to support the points you are making.

Example Assessment: You may use the following to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like:

Assessment 4 Example [PDF].

Additional Requirements

Your assessment should also meet the following requirements:

Length: 4–6 typed, double-spaced pages, not including the title page and reference page.

Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.

APA tutorial: Use the APA Style Paper Tutorial [DOCX] for guidance.

Written communication: Write clearly and logically, with correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.

Using outside sources: Integrate information from outside sources into academic writing by appropriately quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing, following APA style.

References: Integrate information from outside sources to include at least three scholarly or academic peer-reviewed journal articles and three in-text citations within the paper.

APA format: Follow current APA guidelines for in-text citations of outside sources in the body of your paper and also on the reference page.

Organize your paper using the following structure and headings:

Title page. A separate page.

Introduction. A brief one-paragraph statement about the purpose of the paper.

Elements of the problem/issue. Identify the elements of the problem or issue or question.

Analysis. Analyze, define, and frame the problem or issue.

Considering options. Consider solutions, responses, or answers.

Solution. Choose a solution, response, or answer.

Ethical implications. Ethical implications of implementing the solution.

Implementation. Implementation of the potential solution.

Conclusion. One paragraph.

Competencies Measured:

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:

Competency 1: Apply information literacy and library research skills to obtain scholarly information in the field of health care.

Use scholarly information to describe and explain a health care problem or issue and identify possible causes for it.
Competency 2: Apply scholarly information through critical thinking to solve problems in the field of health care.
Analyze a health care problem or issue by describing the context, explaining why it is important and identifying populations affected by it.

Discuss potential solutions for a health care problem or issue and describe what would be required to implement a solution.
Competency 3: Apply ethical principles and academic standards to the study of health care.
Explain the ethical principles (Beneficence, Nonmaleficence, Autonomy, and Justice) if potential solution was implemented

Competency 4: Write for a specific audience, in appropriate tone and style, in accordance with Capella’s writing standards.
Write clearly and logically, with correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.

Write following APA style for in-text citations, quotes, and references.