Purpose
The purpose of the present paper is to establish that data transparency among nurses improves compliance with Bar-code medication administration (BCMA) which positively influences patient safety and service quality in the emergency department (ED). As BMCA practice is considered to be a valuable addition to the hospital patient management process, its usefulness in ED needs to be assessed and evaluated. Considering the lack of reliable data, the paper undertakes to test this hypothesis and aims to prove its instrumental nature for the above-stated setting. The long-term goal of the project is to improve health care quality among hospitals that do not yet employ BMCA and demonstrate its potential within ED units.
Project Significance
Medication errors often account for devastating health care costs and adverse patient outcomes. Death and deterioration of health conditions that result from improper administration of drugs are a serious concern for the health care system which requires urgent attention (Roughead, Semple, & Rosenfeld, 2016). Taking the issue from under the nurses’ domain or at least decreasing the error incidence is a critical and timely task.
BMCA serves to assist nurses with the drug administration process and help minimize the possibility of misconduct by further automating medication delivery. Therefore, by educating nurses to share data this project helped to increase compliance with this practice, thereby improving the performance of ED and raising patient safety and contributing positively to their health outcomes.
Methods
The initiative to introduce and improve data transparency to boost BMCA compliance and patient outcomes required education interventions among nurses working in the ED. The sample of 36 nurse practitioners (NP) was selected randomly among the population of 56 NPs who work in the department. An 11-month educational intervention was then elaborated to assist nurses in transparency data effectively.
At a monthly interval, the BMCA compliance rate was recorded though a manually-distributed survey, specifically developed for this purpose. The data was then analyzed through the inductive approach and quantitative methods with the employment of manual calculation. The initiative was approved by the hospital, and department officials and participation agreements were received from all NPs.
Project Outcome
The project outcomes may be regarded as positive as the core aim was achieved. As a result of the education intervention, the BMCA compliance rate increased from 53.3% at no intervention to 72.0% at the end of the 11-month initiative. By the present research, data transparency is directly and positively related to BMCA compliance. Given the advantageous practice of using BMCA to improve patient safety and outcomes in other settings, there is sufficient potential for employing it within ED. A high compliance rate suggests that this education intervention is successful for NPs working in ED and might also be effective in other hospitals. Also, positive feedback was received from participants, which, in part, testifies to the meaningfulness of the outcomes.
Clinical Significance
Increasing the rate of compliance with BMCA is regarded as a meaningful improvement in the quality of health care services provision. Within a broader context, almost a 20% increase in compliance percentage recorded during this project demonstrates the appropriateness of this drug administration system in the emergency department setting. The experience of this initiative is planned to be employed as a standard practice education for interns who come to the ED for their practical training. There is also a sufficient reason to believe that this project could be applied to other hospitals and increase compliance rates in other departments. Thus, the initiative brings a meaningful contribution to existing academic knowledge and clinical practice.
Reference
Roughead, E. E., Semple, S. J., & Rosenfeld, E. (2016). The extent of medication errors and adverse drug reactions throughout the patient journey in acute care in Australia. International Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare, 14(3), 113-122.