Are we too busy to care?
May
31
Written by:
Ruth Townsend
Monday, May 31, 2010 2:20 PM
Are you too busy to go to the patient’s bedside with another nurse to double check medications? The excuse that you are too busy to have two people check medication prior to patient administration is a difficult one to justify both legally and ethically should something go wrong. The chances of something going wrong are high.
Professor Johanna Westbrook from Sydney University’s Health Informatics Research and Evaluation Unit has said that, "In 80 per cent of administrations of medication there was at least one procedural failure or one clinical error.”1 A procedural error may include not having another nurse check the medication prior to administration.
Although Professor Westbrook was looking at interruptions and their impact on medication administration, Professor Westbrook’s research did show that failure to check a patient’s name against their medical chart was the most frequent procedural failure. This type of simple error can have catastrophic consequences and legally would be unlikely to be seen as anything other than a breach of your standard of care if harm were to be done to the patient as a result of this procedural failure. She also said that the problem would not be fixed by raising staff levels alone.
In discussions with those at the coalface, there has been concern raised amongst the clinical executive that a cultural problem has developed amongst nurses that has led to some nurses disregarding the risks posed to the patient from staff who fail to comply with hospital policies on medication administration. This becomes not only a legal issue but an ethical and more broadly, a professional one.
We should not lose sight of the core philosophical foundation of the profession of nursing which is to provide care and be caring towards our patients. To care about how we treat them. To care about their health outcomes. To care that we might harm them with our action or inaction. Nurses have always been busy, but are we too busy to care?
1. Johanna I. Westbrook, PhD; Amanda Woods, RN, MEd; Marilyn I. Rob, PhD; William T. M. Dunsmuir, PhD; Richard O. Day, MD Association of Interruptions With an Increased Risk and Severity of Medication Administration Errors Vol Arch Intern Med. 2010;170(8):683-690.. 170 No. 8
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