Medication Errors in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Strengthening Education of Registered Nurses

Author(s): Sarmad Muhammad Soomar, Roman Raees, Kiran Muhammad Abbas

Medication error is a very common issue of practice in hospitals. Involving nurses, doctors, administrators and pharmacy team there are a lot more loops into this very significant clinical issue. On a regular base, we see issues of medication and errors related to it in hospital setup. Unfortunately, these incidences sometimes cannot be prevented and proven as fatal and sentinel. Looking at the vulnerable populations like neonates, they are on more risk of getting effected by any of these errors as they are not immune enough or not that much stronger to bear these consequences and the body responds quickly in a negative manner to these errors. Role of nurses in identifying this kind of issue at any level and intervening it, is very essential. In addition, nurses’ role as educator and advocate become very much highlighted here and for that purpose they need to seek support from team, colleagues and leadership in the clinical area. Also, timely referring to resources like medication books, pamphlets or posters for understanding of common medication and their related information is very essential. Continuous session and debriefings on discussing concentrations, infusions, mathematical calculations of dosage and reviewing electronic systems would be beneficial for them. The paper identifies this issue as significant and discusses about insights from an academic project and details retrieved from a simple survey form created during the project and filled by the Registered Nurses in the neonatal intensive care unit of a tertiary teaching hospital. The project concluded with the implementation of creating resources and educational strengthening of the nurses and the paper mentions about it as well.