Print PageMedication Administration Safety Awareness (August 14th 2017)
Thursday August 31, 2017
The Department of Nursing held an Awareness stand outside the Canteen on Wednesday to highlight initiatives to reduce interruptions and errors in Medication Administration. Interruptions during drug rounds have been identified both nationally and internationally as a contributing cause leading to human errors. The introduction of the tabard alert system to the wards a number of years ago, required all nurses to wear a red tabard during drug rounds which clearly states on it “drug round in progress – do not disturb”. Whilst effective at first, a recent audit found that compliance is dropping and staff continue to be interrupted during drug rounds. In re-launching this practice we are empowering staff not to engage with other members of staff during drug rounds by closing the doors to the ward bays with signage on the doors informing staff that a drug round is taking place and indicating they cannot engage by raising their hand. This simple but effective scheme ensures nurses concentrate without distraction whilst informing other members of staff the exact job being carried out. The key message for all staff is please do not interrupt a nurse if he/she is wearing this red alert tabard and do not take offense when they do not engage.
Re-launching this medication safety practice was Meave Heavy, CNM2 AB Clery Ward and Val Connolly, CNM3 Surgical Oncology.
