Mitigating errors caused by interruptions during medication verification and administration: interventions in a...

Area of Science:

• Nursing Practice
• Patient Safety
• Medication Errors

Background:

• Nurses face frequent interruptions during medication verification and administration.
• Limited interventions exist to mitigate these errors, and their impact on medication safety is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• Assess the impact of interruptions on medication errors.
• Design and evaluate interventions to reduce these errors.

Main Methods:

• A simulation laboratory experiment was used to quantify interruption-related errors in medication verification and administration.
• Interventions were developed via participatory design and tested in a postintervention experiment.

Main Results:

• Interrupted nurses committed significantly more medication errors than uninterrupted nurses.
• Interventions reduced errors in medication verification (syringes, pump programming) and administration (IV push, pump programming).
• Error rates decreased significantly postintervention for specific tasks.

Conclusions:

• Interruptions contribute to medication errors in nursing.
• Developed interventions effectively reduced errors in medication administration.
• Findings are generalizable to other settings requiring medication verification and administration.