Changing nurse work environment could reduce errors

Organizations should re-evaluate attempts at improving medication administration safety and include nurses in identifying solutions, according to a study. Published in Global Qualitative Nursing Research, the authors conducted the qualitative study on a unit of an urban hospital to examine the process of giving medications to patients in the context of nurse workflow. When nurses’ workloads increased, nurses worked faster and were more prone to make errors. The authors call for increasing the involvement and influence of their nurses in hospital staffing, policies and patient care. Hospitals should rely on a “code team” comprised of expert nurses to provide immediate support during busy times, rather than a single floating nurse. (AHRQ Patient Safety Network study, 2/1/23)