NHS FPX 4000 Assessment 4 Analyzing a Current Health Care Problem or Issue

NHS FPX 4000 Assessment 4 Analyzing a Current Health Care Problem or Issue

NHS FPX 4000 Assessment 4 Analyzing a Current Health Care Problem or Issue

Individual patients and groups visit health care facilities looking forward to comprehensive care and continuous support from health professionals. A holistic assessment of health issues, appropriate treatment, and healthy patient-provider relationships characterize such care. Despite multiple efforts to achieve this goal, numerous issues that hamper patient safety and care quality occur at different care points. Accordingly, health care professionals and leaders should explore these issues and their implications and implement sustainable, evidence-based solutions. Evidence-based solutions are informed by current research to ensure they are valid (Alrabadi et al., 2021). The purpose of this paper is to analyze a current issue in health care, including a proposed solution and possible ethical implications.

Scholarly Information Explaining the Health Care Issue

Medication errors are a significant issue whose occurrence threatens patient safety immensely. Their prevalence should be a sincere concern for health professionals who envision safe workplaces for patients and care providers. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), approximately 100,000 cases of suspected medical errors are reported annually. The FDA (2019) further reported that medication errors have profound implications including disability, birth defects, and deaths. From personal experiences and observations, medication errors are preventable occurrences requiring multi-dimensional interventions to control effectively. They are preventable since they often occur due to human error, such as a lack of medication confirmation and failure to administer the correct dosage (Tariq et al., 2023). A multi-dimensional approach is necessary due to the differences in causes and the scope of the issue.

For effective outcomes, patients, health care professionals, and organizational leaders should play their individual roles effectively. For instance, leaders should provide appropriate education and technology for preventing medication errors as health professionals adopt them accordingly (Ahsani-Estahbanati et al., 2022; Rodziewicz et al., 2023). Patients should be adequately educated on the potential of medication errors, their prevention, and the importance of speaking up as members of the broader health care team. They should also provide health care professionals with adequate information about their health, current medications, and possible drug reactions to guide health professionals in the medication administration process.

The above information helps to explain medication errors from multiple perspectives, allowing the issue to be understood comprehensively. For instance, describing its prevalence underlines why it is a severe issue requiring maximum attention in health care settings. Besides, presenting it as a preventable health risk illustrates how human failure leads to its occurrence. The other information area is the need for a multifaceted approach involving different individuals and teams. Overall, this information can guide health care professionals and leaders to focus on the appropriate areas when formulating and implementing measures to prevent medication errors.

Analysis of the Issue

Definition

Although there is no standard definition of medication errors, various researchers, scholars, and organizations have provided several definitions to demonstrate what the issue entails. For instance, Rasool et al. (2020) defined a medication error as a failure in drug therapy, resulting in patient harm. Such harm includes health complications and disability. Tariq et al. (2023) expanded this definition by describing a medication error as a preventable event leading to inappropriate medication use. In any case, patient harm is inevitable, and its magnitude varies with the type of medication inappropriately used, the dosage, and the patient’s present health status.

Those Involved

Medication errors can occur in all settings where medication use is involved. Therefore, physicians, nurses, pharmacists could be involved in causing a medication error. Patients receiving inpatient or outpatient care can be victims of medication errors in varying magnitudes. Nursing research demonstrates that medication errors can occur at any stage of the medication process. These stages include medication prescription, transcription, dispensation, and administration (Schroers et al., 2021; Manias et al., 2020). Most errors are encountered during medication administration, hence increased attention in this area. Wondmieneh et al. (2020) reported that nurses are the most associated with medication errors since they spend over 40% of their time administering m