Introduction
There is an urgent need to address the prevalence of medication errors. According to Tariq et al. (2023), the latter reduce patient outcomes, increase healthcare costs, and burden the medical system. The proposed approach offers practical training to nurses to enhance their communication, awareness, focus, and knowledge. In this case, the team is expected to make fewer medication errors after a four-month implementation period. This paper aims to discuss the project’s outcomes, approach, and budget.
Outcomes
Specific outcomes formulated in SMART goal format can ensure a more successful project implementation. Firstly, cases of medication errors will drop by 90%. Further, since nursing stress and tiredness contribute significantly to their failures, the intervention will aim to reduce burnout cases by 70%. Employee satisfaction with interprofessional communication will be measured to track significant improvements. It is also expected that nurses’ self-efficacy scores will grow by 70% as they will receive informative brochures to study.
Lastly, using an electronic medication administration record (eMAR) will achieve a 100% improvement, and all cases of medication administration will be entered into the system. All these outcomes are interrelated and serve the key objective. Thus, burnout and stress can worsen communication while technology improves it. The more confident the nurses are, the better they can utilize eMAR and avoid errors.
- Reduce cases of medication errors by 90% within 4 months after the intervention by educating nurses about ways to prevent and avoid them. This will be the most evident measurement of success as it is the key object of the project.
- By offering ways to decrease stress in the training program, reduce the reported cases of nurse burnout by 70% within 4 months. Since burnout is a major risk factor for administering the wrong drugs, reducing burnout will improve nurses’ performance.
- Worker satisfaction with communication grows by 80% within 2 months as multidisciplinary team building and bonding techniques will be applied. This will eliminate errors associated with poor communication.
- Provide nurses with brochures about medication errors’ risk factors and prevention, which will increase their self-efficacy scores by 70% within 3 months. This step will strengthen nurses ‘ confidence since self-doubt also plays a significant role.
- Improve the use of technologies, such as eMAR, by 100% within 4 months, as all medication-related information will be entered into the system. This will prevent most drug administration failures because reliable technologies will replace poor handwriting.
Approach/Implementation
A detailed implementation plan strengthens the overall healthcare intervention. Therefore, specific strategies have to be identified, and the first action is to determine gaps in nurses’ skills and knowledge (Escrivá Gracia et al., 2019). For example, they can know how to use eMAR but lack understanding of its benefits over handwritten records, which might prevent them from utilizing the system.
Further, key obstacles that reduce interprofessional and nurse-to-nurse communication will be defined. It will be adequate to address them through team-building and team-bonding practices, such as gratitude circles, nonverbal communication activities, and workshops (Härkänen et al., 2020).
When gaps are identified, training programs will be developed and offered to address them and improve participants’ knowledge and qualifications. They will be taught to correctly use eMAR, identify and avoid medication error risks, apply self-care techniques, and communicate effectively. Before, during, and after the education, all employees will respond to survey questions to measure their improvements and satisfaction (Tavares et al., 2020).
Next, all nurses will use practices to reduce stress (Bucknall et al., 2019). They will learn about the benefits of meditation, work-life balance, yoga, and other methods and will be given self-care packages with herbal tea, candles, and other items.
To achieve improved outcomes, the process will be carefully managed during all stages, and participants’ feedback will be gathered promptly to introduce all the necessary adjustments and revisions to employees’ studies. All the abovementioned actions aim to achieve the expected outcomes, so the intervention will likely result in significant changes.
Budget
Careful budget planning is essential to ensure a successful implementation of the project. Firstly, it is critical to have training coordinators who will identify educational goals, prepare efficient programs, and manage the whole process. The finances needed for their work comprise $1890.Further, participants will require educational materials and additional brochures costing $3750 and $2040. Another $450-$750 will be spent on designing these educational materials, as well as promoting the value of the training among medical workers. Care packages should be purchased for about $25 each to support nurses on their no-burnout path. Lastly, approximately $120 will be required to create self-efficacy and communication satisfaction surveys.
Conclusion
The outlined project seems promising and effective if its objectives are reached. Research proves that nursing education can reduce medication errors through communication, stress management, and enhancement of technology (Tariq et al., 2023). This project has five SMART goals, and the key is to achieve a 90% drop in drug administration failures. Several strategies will be used to accomplish these purposes. The estimated budget is $11920-$12220, including expenses on training coordinators, educational materials, and other services.
References
Bucknall, T., Fossum, M., Hutchinson, A. M., Botti, M., Considine, J., Dunning, T., Hughes, L., Weir-Phyland, J., Digby, R., & Manias, E. (2019). Nurses’ decision-making, practices and perceptions of patient involvement in medication administration in an acute hospital setting. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 75(6), 1316–1327. Web.
Escrivá Gracia, J., Brage Serrano, R., & Fernández Garrido, J. (2019). Medication errors and drug knowledge gaps among critical-care nurses: A mixed multi-method study. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1), 640. Web.
Härkänen, M., Turunen, H., & Vehviläinen-Julkunen, K. (2020). Differences between methods of detecting medication errors: A secondary analysis of medication administration errors using incident reports, the global trigger tool method, and observations. Journal of Patient Safety, 16(2), 168. Web.
Tariq, R. A., Vashisht, R., Sinha, A., & Scherbak, E. (2023). Medication dispensing errors and prevention. StatPearlsPublishing. Web.
Tavares, W., Eppich, W., Cheng, A., Miller, S., Teunissen, P. W., Watling, C. J., & Sargeant, J. (2020). Learning conversations: An analysis of the theoretical roots and their manifestations of feedback and debriefing in medical education. Academic Medicine, 95(7), 1020-1025. Web.
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