Due Date: Oct 22, 2017 23:59:59 Max Points: 150 Details: As you have discovered
ID: 125133 • Letter: D
Question
Due Date: Oct 22, 2017 23:59:59 Max Points: 150 Details: As you have discovered through this course, nurses are influential members of the community and the political system. Therefore, for the purposes of this assignment you will identify a problem or concern in your community, organization, etc. that has the capacity to be legislated. You will conduct research and state a proposal. Through the legislative process, your proposal for the problem or concern may influence an idea for change into a law. First, refer to the "How a Bill Becomes a Law" media. http://lc.gcumedia.com/zwebassets/courseMaterialPages/nrs440v_how-a-bill-becomes-a-law-v2.1.php/. Then, view the "Bill to Law Process" to watch the scenario. After viewing the scenario, refer to the "Legislative Assignment." You will need to save the document first in order to use it. Submit the assignment to the instructor. You also reserve the right to submit your completed proposal to the respective government official. However, this is optional. If you select to submit your proposal as a part of the legislative process, refer to "Find Your Representative" or research the contact information on your own. APA format is not required, but solid academic writing is expected.
Explanation / Answer
Legislative Worksheet (SBAR Format) – How a Bill Becomes a Law
SITUATION: IS THIS SOMETHING THAT CAN BE LEGISLATED?
Medication errors are one of the leading causes of mortality across the United States. These errors are pervasive across all healthcare delivery systems. It has also been noted that patients’ who are in critical condition, such as those undergoing a cardiac surgery, are at high risk of death if a drug error occurs to these patients.
A variety of factors play a role for these errors. Both the systems issues and the healthcare workers’ performance lead to medication errors, however, it has been noted that by changing the processes of the healthcare systems alone a majority of drug-related errors can be dramatically minimized.
State your proposal/idea:
As a healthcare worker striving towards the quality-improvement process, I strongly believe that implementation of policies related to medication errors prevention and patient safety will lead to high-quality and patient-centered care.
It is of great importance if a legislation is passed as “Every healthcare system must develop protocols and policies related to medication error prevention, such as listing out look-alike and sound-alike medications, listing out high-alert medications, etc. so that these errors or completely eliminated or at least minimized”.
BACKGROUND: DO YOUR RESEARCH
Literature review: (Include studies, reports, personal experience, or anecdotal stories related to your proposal):
Recent researches reveal that most of the errors result from systems errors of medication safety rather than an individual’s performance. For example, there are many medications which are look-alike and sound-alike. To prevent errors occurring from these drugs, every organization should propose a drug formulary with a list of look-alike and sound-alike medications so that individual healthcare professionals identify and learn these drugs and take extra attention while administering them to patients’ thereby reducing errors.
Has there been similar legislation introduced and/or passed in other states? If so, include it:
A review of recent literature and journals review that most of the states across the United States have proposed legislation related to medication error prevention. For example, there is a committee called Quality Interagency Coordination Task Force (QuIC) for developing a plan of action for preventing medication errors. It has its work on encouraging voluntary reporting of drug errors by healthcare workers and promoting mandatory error-reporting by organizations to collect information about these errors, etc.
Recently various laws like “The Medical Errors Reduction Act of 2000”, “The Stop All Frequent Errors in Medicare and Medicaid Act of 2000”, and “Patient Safety and Errors Reduction Act”, and “The Voluntary Error Reduction and Improvement in Patient Safety Act” all focus on identifying medication errors and finding ways to prevent them.
However, it has been noted that even though all these laws are enforced, many errors still are occurring in the healthcare systems, thereby revealing that error-tracking systems are still in the infancy states. As a result, a more transparent law, “Formulating protocols and policies for drug error prevention” is necessitated to eliminate medication errors completely by implementing protocols and policies across various systems.
ASSESSMENT: FINANCES AND STAKEHOLDERS
While the implementation of this law requires more effort at first (a complete analysis of the system, proposing a drug formulary, implementation of look-alike, sound-alike, and high alert drugs, etc), its long-term effects are worth in its investments. It actually requires additional effort by every individual staff.
The results are reduced workload among healthcare workers (nurses requires less clarification about a drug and the time spent on these activities will be minimized so that they contribute their time and effort to dedicated patient care). Furthermore, reduction in morbidity and mortality of patients from these errors are a major positive impact.
It seems that a majority of healthcare organizations, as well as the individual healthcare professions, welcome this new initiative as it benefits both the organization, the health workers as a whole in addition to benefitting patients.
Any change has some resistance initially before its impact will be felt. Similarly, there might be a though as even though a lot of legislation have been enacted in previous years related to medication safety and made mandatory and voluntary submission of drug errors there are still errors occurring and hence this new initiative’s effect might fade away in the long run.
RECOMMENDATION: (Make an appointment with your legislator to discuss your proposal)
A proposal regarding prevention of medication errors related to look-alike and sound-alike medications and drugs that are high-alert.
There should a law that every healthcare industry must make a drug formulary based on the supply and availability of drugs in their pharmacy.
From this drug formulary, they should make a list of look-alike drugs, sound-alike drugs, and high-alert medications.
They distribute this data to every unit and educate health workers about medication errors and the ways to prevent it.
Related Questions
drjack9650@gmail.com
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.