Discussion response 1
Describe why their articles meet the requirements for primary research and comment on their assessment of its potential to inform evidence-based practice. Did they miss anything? If the chosen peer article is not a primary research article, clarify the difference in primary research and the selected article. PRIMARY research studies are those studies that are written by the actual people who conducted the study being shared, not a study that they read about and are commenting on
PICO Question: Do nurses who utilize the barcode scanning system compared to not using it reduce the rate of documented medication errors and adverse events?
Improving medication safety practice at a community hospital: a focus on bar code medication administration scanning and pain reassessment
Primary peer-reviewed research articles are written by the researchers who conducted them whereas as secondary sources are descriptions of studies prepared by someone else. Primary sources are considered the optimal choice when conducting researching as they are the most detailed and written in an unbiased objective format. “Observational studies by definition primary studies “the primary methods are self-reports (e.g., interviews and questionnaires), observations (e.g., watching and recording people’s behavior), and biophysiological measures (biomarkers)” (Polit & Beck, 2021) Literature reviews are considered a secondary source and are not a good source when conducting research.
Medication errors are an issue in healthcare facilities that affect patient care outcomes and patient safety. Medication and adverse events are also costly to healthcare facilities. In reviewing if barcode scanning is effective in reducing medication errors and adverse events.
Will be researching scholarly articles that conduct quality initiatives to implement interventions to create improvements in the number of medication errors. The article Chose for PICO question is considered a primary source as the study was written by the researchers who conducted the study.
The discussion of the research article identifies potentially dangerous gaps in medication administration safety procedures. Researchers convened with nurses and pharmacy to discuss barriers and receive feedback to audits completed.
Quality improvements were put in place to increase medication barcode scan rates once barriers were identified. Incentive was created by researchers by creating a scanning competition and awarding those nurses that were able to achieve a 95% scan rate or those that were top reporters of non-scanning medications to attend a celebratory party.
The process implemented was used to update the medication delivery system and create high quality policies and procedures that were rolled out as the new standard.
Medication scan rates and pain reassessments importance were standardized in new hire training and annual competencies. Improvements were sustained over seventeen months post implementation. Medication scan rates were improved by 14% and pain re-assessments improved by 50% one hour post opioid administration.
Challenges of the study included developing new dashboards and methods in data collection. The project took six months of weekly scanning audits and seven months of pain re-assessment to achieve desired results.
Polit, D., & Beck, C. (2020). Essentials of Nursing Research (10th Edition). Wolters Kluwer Health. https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9781975171667
Ho, J., & Burger, D. (2020). Improving medication safety practice at a community hospital: a focus on bar code medication administration scanning and pain reassessment. BMJ Open Quality, 9(3), e000987. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2020-000987