Nursing

Write a 3-page paper that addresses the following:

1.Explain the ethical and legal implications of the scenario you selected on all stakeholders involved, such as the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and patient’s family.
2.Describe strategies to address disclosure and nondisclosure as identified in the scenario you selected. Be sure to reference laws specific to your state.
3. Explain two strategies that you, as an advanced practice nurse, would use to guide your decision making in this scenario, including whether you would disclose your error. Be sure to justify your explanation.
4. Explain the process of writing prescriptions, including strategies to minimize medication errors.

APA 7 FOR FORMAT PLS

NEEDS title page, introduction, summary, and references.

Medication Errors

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Introduction

Over the years, medical and prescription errors have continued to cause unwanted suffering to the patients. Disclosure and non-disclosure of medical errors have been a major issue among the physicians due to the legal implications associated with disclosure of medical errors. The paper will focus on a scenario of disclosure and non-disclosure in Florida.  In Florida, disclosure of medical errors is increasingly encouraged to eliminate errors. Prescription errors is among the medical errors that need to be addressed to prevent the occurrence of medical errors.

1.Ethical and legal implications of the scenario.

Due to a lack of medical history, any step during the prescribing process may lead to errors. Medical errors are a result of mistakes and unintended omissions during the prescription process (Gleason, Swisher, and Weiss, 2019). Under Florida law § 0395.1051 and § 456.0575, the medical practitioners are expected to notify the patients. The healthcare providers and physicians must disclose to the representatives or the patient themselves about the adverse incidents that might negatively affect the well-being and the quality of the patient safety.

In Florida, they highly recommend disclosure, primarily when those involved have acknowledged that they have made a medical error. This is considered as one of the ways of eliminating mistakes. Disclosure of medical errors is regarded as an ethical requirement, while non-exposure leads to legal implications (Magill, 2016). The legal repercussions include possible lawsuits that may lead to the imposition of fines. It is significant to admit medical mistakes to avoid potential harm for the patients. Nondisclosure goas against the rights of the patients which is not tolerated in Florida

2.Strategies to address disclosure and nondisclosure

To solve the ethical dilemma, organizations should change their approaches to error disclosure to address the physician’s discomfort with exposure due to legal implications. Institutions need to establish communication and response strategies that focus on early disclosure of adverse occurrences, appropriate investigation to the errors, rapid apology, and implementation systems that prevent recurrences (Wiig, Aase, Bourrier and Røise, 2018). For instance, computer-based monitoring is an essential strategy for error reporting. The computer reporting system offers the occurrence reports, ensures real-time reporting, documents the error, and offers a rapid investigation to the contributing factors. Reporting medication errors into a computer database can help in improving the safety of the patient as well as the human error rates.

Considerably, institutions need to take a principled approach to address errors through a culture of openness through programs that facilitate active disclosure and implementation of interventions that lower recurrence. Relatively, educational programs for the disclosure of medical mistakes are essential in improving physicians’ confidence in disclosing medical errors. These educational programs are critical in enabling the patients to think about how to reduce medical errors as well as how they will communicate medical mistakes to the patients.

3. Strategies as an Advanced Practice Nurse

The disclosure and nondisclosure decision depends on the level of the person, their value for human life, and the ability to accept that they have made a mistake. As an advanced nurse practitioner, I would choose disclosure over nondisclosure. The first and most effective step is to admit that an error has occurred. Ideally, after I realize that I have made a mistake in the prescription of drugs, I would accept the error and disclose the mistake to allow for interventions.

Failure to disclose the medical error might be more dangerous to the patient if they continue taking the drugs, which would be worse than before seeking the medical service (Kalra, Campos-Baniak, Saxena, and Rafid-Hamed, 2019). Another essential strategy is identifying the error and document the error for interventions. A medication error analysis will reduce the risk of not disclosing the error since review and communication with other healthcare practitioners will reduce the errors. The principle of beneficence seeks moral obligations to act for the greater good of others. When a healthcare provider discloses the error, there is an opportunity for the patient to build trust with the advanced nurse practitioner.

4. Process of writing prescriptions and Strategies to Minimize Medication Errors.

When writing prescriptions, there are essential things that physicians need to consider. Considerably, the prescription should use a language that the patient will understand and which the patient can read so that it may be easy for them to understand how to take the drugs. The process of a prescription includes prescription data entry, clinical review, verification, and release to the patient (Kocabiyikoglu, Portet, Blanchon, & Babouchkine, 2019).

The prescription data entry should include the drug names and how the patient will take the drugs. The clinical review includes checking the patient’s allergy status and confirming that the patient’s prescription is safe. Relatively, this involves checking the drugs that the patient may not tolerate due to their clinical status.  While writing the prescription, it is important to clearly state the frequency at which the drugs are taken and the projected days that the patient should take drugs.

With the increased advancement in technology, the electronic prescription of drugs can help in reducing prescription errors. The E-prescription systems have increased the efficiency and safety of prescribing practices (Samadbeik, Ahmadi, Sadoughi, and Garavand, 2017). The physicians can verify whether the patients have filled their prescriptions and offer counsel on the patient’s medication management. Therefore, the electronic prescription process has reduced medical and prescription errors, as well as enhanced the quality and safety of the prescribing process.

Summary

In summation, there are different non-disclosure and disclosure laws depending on the state laws. In Florida, physicians are discouraged to withhold information about the medical errors. Disclosure is essential in preventing legal consequences associated with non-disclosure. As difficulty as it may seem. Advanced nurse practitioners should admit that they have made an error and disclose the error to the patient in order to find the most suitable solution. Among the ways physicians can reduce medical errors is using computer based systems such as electronic prescription process which has lowered medical and prescription errors.

References

Gleason, J. L., Swisher, E., & Weiss, P. M. (2019). Transparency and Disclosure. Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinics, 46(2), 247-255.

Kalra, J. J., Campos-Baniak, M. G., Saxena, A., & Rafid-Hamed, Z. (2019, July). Medical Error Disclosure-A Canadian Perspective in Improving Quality of Health Care. International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (pp. 26-34). Springer, Cham.

Kocabiyikoglu, A. C., Portet, F., Blanchon, H., & Babouchkine, J. M. (2019, October). Towards Spoken Medical Prescription Understanding. In 2019 International Conference on Speech Technology and Human-Computer Dialogue (SpeD) (pp. 1-8). IEEE.

Magill, G. (2016). Ethical and policy issues related to medical error and patient safety. In First Do No Harm (pp. 117-132). Routledge.

Samadbeik, M., Ahmadi, M., Sadoughi, F., & Garavand, A. (2017). A comparative review of electronic prescription systems: lessons learned from developed countries. Journal of research in pharmacy practice, 6(1), 3.

Wiig, S., Aase, K., Bourrier, M., & Røise, O. (2018). Transparency in Health Care: Disclosing Adverse Events to the Public. In Risk Communication for the Future (pp. 111-125). Springer, Cham.