I just read an arti­cle about med­ica­tion errors. I know this is a touchy sub­ject with nurses, but it is also an impor­tant one. We give chemother­apy and other drugs that can be poten­tially life threat­en­ing. How do you pro­tect your­self from mak­ing med­ica­tion errors?

Does your insti­tu­tion prac­tice the ONS chemother­apy safety stan­dards, or does it have its own stan­dards? Do you, as a nurse, fol­low the ONS stan­dards? Do you remem­ber the five rights of med­ica­tion admin­is­tra­tion before you give a med­i­cine? (Five rights of med­ica­tion admin­is­tra­tion: right patient, right med­ica­tion, right route, right dose, and right time.) What can we do as a pro­fes­sion to help elim­i­nate med­ica­tion errors or at least greatly reduce the inci­dence of them?

Some hos­pi­tals are mov­ing toward bar cod­ing for med­ica­tion admin­is­tra­tion. Does your hos­pi­tal use this method? What are your thoughts about it? I have worked in sev­eral hos­pi­tals with this kind of med­i­cine admin­is­tra­tion, and prob­lems occur with this method too. Scan­ners may not always read the bar code, which often results in the nurse over-​​riding the sys­tem and giv­ing the med­ica­tion any way. I once worked in a facil­ity in which chemother­apy almost never scanned correctly.

So, what do we do? How do we pro­tect our patients from med­ica­tion errors?