Chemotherapy Safety: Reducing Errors With a Nurse-Led Time-Out Process

Area of Science:

• Oncology Nursing
• Patient Safety
• Quality Improvement

Background:

• Nurses are crucial in preventing chemotherapy administration errors.
• Assessing error rates and implementing quality initiatives are vital for reducing these errors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate chemotherapy administration error rates before and after implementing a two-nurse time-out process.
• To determine the frequency of errors prevented by the intervention.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective quality report utilizing pharmacy administration records.
• Analysis of chemotherapy safety events across three distinct time periods.

Main Results:

• The overall rate of chemotherapy administration errors was consistently low across all periods.
• Error rates remained low post-intervention, similar to published findings.

Conclusions:

• The two-nurse chemotherapy time-out process is an effective strategy for maintaining low error rates.
• This intervention contributes to quality improvement in chemotherapy administration.