Charting Issues and Medications Errors
Weekly Time Sheet
Copy this form for each week of your residency experience. Attach each week’s time sheet to the project weekly update discussion board.
Project Week/Dates ______________
Table 1: Weekly Time Sheet
| Day/Date | Time IN | Time OUT | Activities Engaged In | Mentor Initials |
| Sunday
| 8.00AM | 2.00PM | Evaluating whether the dosage given to the patients is accurate based on the clinician’s prescription. Achieved through follow-up of the nurses’ medication operations while comparing the dosage given to written prescription by the doctor. | |
| Monday
| 6.00AM | 4.00PM | Observing whether the route of drug administration matches the recommended route by the doctor. Achieved through evaluating whether prescribed drugs are administered either orally or intravenously. This activity is based on the perspective that nurses may be involved in medicinal error of using the wrong route to administer drugs to patients which may prove to be ineffective in treating the patient’s ailment. | |
| Tuesday
| 6.00AM | 4.00PM | Observing the drug charts and overseeing whether there are errors in administering drugs to patients where the wrong patient is given the wrong drug. Such an instance can occur when drugs meant for patient A are administered to patient B or when the administration of medication such as antibiotics is written in the wrong drug chart. | |
| Wednesday
| 6.00AM | 4.00PM | Evaluating the drugs administration time. It is the obligation of the nurse to write when the patient is given the medicine or when the patient stops taking the medications. In some cases, the nurses may be ignorant in recording such information or may even omit this crucial information hence contributing to the medication errors and charting issues. Writing of this information incorrectly contributes to medication errors hence evaluation of the administration time is vital in determining the effectiveness of the nurses in achieving their ethical roles and obligations in the line of duty. | |
| Thursday
| 6.00AM | 4.00PM | Evaluating whether the drug administered matches the prescribed medicine. At times, the patients may be given the wrong drug whereby they may be prescribed a drug aimed at curing a specific diseases, but due to medication errors, they are administered drugs that are not effective in treating the disease of concern. | |
| Friday
| 6.00AM | 4.00PM | Evaluating the prescription and the notes taken by the nurses. Legible handwriting is necessary for overall treatment of patients since legible handwriting can be easily interpreted by other medical personnel such as doctors or other physicians who intend to know the patient’s history as basic information for treating the patient. This activity is of the essence in pointing out whether the errors recorded arise from the nurses’ handwriting illegibility which may portray bad intentions to the patients which is unethical in nursing. | |
| Saturday
| 8.00AM | 2.00PM | Evaluating the drugs prescribed to the patients whether they negatively affect the patient by eliciting an allergic response. It is necessary to follow up the patients’ medical history before prescribing medication as a way of avoiding administering drugs such as penicillin drug which may cause an allergic reaction to some patients. |
Weekly total __________________________________________________________
Running total: __________________________________________________________
Weekly Time Sheet
Copy this form for each week of your residency experience. Attach each week’s time sheet to the project weekly update discussion board.
Project Week/Dates ______________
| Day/Date | Time IN | Time OUT | Activities Engaged In | Mentor Initials |
| Sunday
| 8.00AM | 2.00PM | Observing drug interaction. This is achieved through evaluating drugs administered to patients. Some drugs combination may bring adverse effects to the patients. Prescribing of wrong drugs that may lead to a negative drug interaction may be attributed to by drug errors and charting. | |
| Monday
| 6.00AM | 4.00PM | Evaluating the preparation of drugs before being administered to the patients. Different medication require different preparations prior to administering. Some drugs may need to be made into solutions for injection hence appropriate volume measurement is necessary to ensure accurate dosages are administered. Due to medical errors, some of the drugs may be prepared the wrong way. | |
| Tuesday
| 6.00AM | 4.00PM | Observing the drug administration time. This is to evaluate whether the nurses dispense the medicine within the set time by the clinicians or a delay is experienced before dispensing | |
| Wednesday
| 6.00AM | 4.00PM | Observing the drug storage methods embraced by the nurses. Poor storage can lead to contamination of the medication. | |
| Thursday
| 6.00AM | 4.00PM | Observing the compliance of the nurse to the set rules and regulations of the hospital. Nurses are not expected to administer some drugs to the patients who may be considered as an unsafe practice. | |
| Friday
| 6.00AM | 4.00PM | Observing for double checking omission. Some nurses may fail to countercheck the written drugs at the patient’s bedside which may lead to an avoidable error of drug administration. | |
| Saturday
| 8.00AM | 2.00PM | Evaluating whether the dispensed drug is as per the recommended period as a way of checking whether the patients are administered expired drugs. |
Weekly total __________________________________________________________
Running total: __________________________________________________________
References
American Nurses Association. (2009). Scope and standards for nurse administrators.
Washington, DC: American Nurses Publishing.
Buckley, M. S., Harinstein, L. M., Clark, K. B., Smithburger, P. L., Eckhardt, D. J., Alexander, E., … & Kane-Gill, S. L. (2013). Impact of a clinical pharmacy admission medication reconciliation program on medication errors in “high-risk” patients. Annals of Pharmacotherapy, 47(12), 1599-1610.
Dolansky, M. A., Druschel, K., Helba, M., & Courtney, K. (2013). Nursing student medication errors: a case study using root cause analysis. Journal of professional nursing, 29(2), 102-108.
Harris, J.L., Roussel, L., Walters, S.E., Dearman, C. (2011). Project planning and management:
A guide for CNLs, DNPs, and nurse executives. Subury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
Ross, S., Ryan, C., Duncan, E. M., Francis, J. J., Johnston, M., Ker, J. S. … & McLay, J. (2013). Perceived causes of prescribing errors by junior doctors in hospital inpatients: a study from the PROTECT programme. BMJ quality & safety, 22(2), 97-102.
Tariq, A., Georgiou, A., & Westbrook, J. (2013). Medication errors in residential aged care facilities: A distributed cognition analysis of the information exchange process. International Journal of medical informatics, 82(5), 299-312.
