Administration of High-Risk Medication: A Hospital Based Prospective Study

Background: High-risk medicines are outlined as those medicines that have a high risk of inflicting pain or death once employed to patients in error. Hence, this work was done to identify key parameters of mishandling observed by the administration on high-risk medication.

Methods: The audit team conjointly assessed compliance with policies and tips associated with the administration of medication. Moreover, key documents including several of the nursing ability checklists were reviewed. The major attributes are taken as ICU, ER, Wards, Pre-Post-Operative & CCU. The measurable elements include documented policies, and procedures for medication administration; close monitoring on records for adverse drug incidents. Analysis revealed that a significant improvement in high-risk medicine accessibility along with the provision of a list of drugs, high-risk medicines were still found at patient bedside in few scenarios. Nurses were found to be highly knowledgeable regarding high-risk medications policies but fall short in executing them at workstations.

Results: Findings suggest that there is a need for revision in policies concerning high-risk medicines placement and storage; and also, they must be separated from the usually used medicines; timely training programs should be conducted for staff and individual attention. Documentation related to high-risk medicines starting from prescription, double authentication, verification, pre-, and post-administration should be improvised. Special attention needs to be paid to reporting medication errors like prescription errors; adverse drug reactions related to high-risk medicine administration.