Professional, Ethical, and Legal Responsibilities in Safe Medication Administration NUR4015

Introduction

Ensuring safety while administering medication can be considered nurses' primary responsibility as they hold the ultimate position to evaluate the right medication that has been prescribed, administered, and dispensed. Nevertheless, medication errors can also take place in clinical care units if health professionals fail to abide by the safety policy of medication administration (Debono et al., 2017). The below case analysis highlights the directions, standards, and policies of safety medicine administration followed by assessing registered and student nurses' responsibilities and roles for administering medication to clients. The professional, ethical, and legal repercussions related to nurses' medication errors have also been elaborated in this case analysis.

Policies, standards, and guidelines of registered nurses in consideration of medication administration

Engage in professional and therapeutic connections: For RNs, it is necessary to provide evidence-oriented and person-centered care to patients. They usually get involved with clients' family members, communities, physicians, and organizations by staying within their professional and therapeutic capability. The Nursing and Midwifery Australian Board or NMBA directs the engagement standard in order to maintain professional and therapeutic connections.

Safety in medication administration: The RN must ensure that the administration of a medication has been done abiding by the five rights linked to it. This includes medicine provided to the right client followed by the right route, right time, and right dose (Brabcov et al., 2023). Nursing professionals are also required to double-check the prescription of medication and the patient's name within the clinical file specifically before any medicine is administered to them.

Patient education: Specifically, by following the NMBA standard nurses work in conformity with the safety in order to provide medications to patients. It is required for RNs to educate all patients with regard to their medications comprising their significant side effects and their purpose (Cashin et al., 2017).

Reporting: RNs should also report any kind of negative reactions discrepancies or medication complexity taking place within the medication regimen of the patient. They will be required to report every near error, miss, and negative reaction.

Responsibilities and roles of RNs and Student Nurses for Mrs. Mendezs care

Nurses play a vital role in caring for and treating patients accurately by staying at the forefront. But there are certain differences between responsibilities and roles obtained by RNs and student nurses which are elaborated below:

Student nurses key responsibilities and roles

A student nurse's key responsibility and role is performing the basic duties connected to client care such as positioning the latest joined patients to the allocated ward, feeding and dressing them, altering their bedding as well as ensuring maintenance of their basic hygiene. A key part of their responsibilities is also to deliver effective patient education. However, student nurses do not hold the responsibility to determine the prescribed medication for the client as well as search for any potential medicine-to-medicine interactions as evident in the case scenario of Mrs. Mendez (Mutair et al., 2021). Various other healthcare providers like the RNs showcased their failure to notice the interaction of drug to drug between methotrexate and trimethoprim which were provided to the patient.

RNs' Key Responsibilities and Roles

RNs' major responsibilities and roles comprise knowing well the requirements and circumstances of the patient, evaluating and managing the patient's treatment plan as well as delivering suitable nursing approaches following the medicinal directions. Concerning the case study, it can be observed that the RN failed to identify any significant drug-to-drug interconnections for Mrs. Mendez and also wrongly evaluated the prescribed medication to her which resulted in negative consequences (NMBA, 2016). These examples denote the necessity for maximizing precaution and attention on the part of the registered nurse.

The right procedure for nurses to identify medication error

Medication errors might result in adverse consequences therefore when they are recognized must be reported and documented precisely. Within this case scenario after determining Mrs. Mendezs condition, the mitigation error was recognized by the student nurse in relation to drug interactions between Methotrexate and Trimethoprim which were altogether provided to the patient thereby causing a harmful impact. Based on the policy of medication administration, the medical practitioners should be urgently notified by the nurses with regard to the patients condition along with requesting an urgent medical review (Tariq & Scherbak, 2024). Hence, nurses must also inform the adverse incident taking place to the coordinator or nursing supervisor following the health care settings policy.

Working in connection with all guidelines of the policy, the following approach must constitute incident reporting specifically where documentation of the nurse with regards to drug administration error would be carried out by fulfilling the incident form of the medication error. Further, the registered nurse would work in collaboration with the student nurse and complete the incident form (Tsegaye et al., 2020). It would also be required for the RN to abide by open disclosure ethical principles and policy and must inform the family of the clients concerning the incident followed by delivering emotional assistance to the client's family.

Legal, professional, and ethical implications concerning a medication error

Due to medication errors, nurses are usually exposed to ethical and legal obligations. Based on ethical principles with regard to self-determination rights, information rights autonomy, veracity, and non-maleficence ethical complexities are guided. The entire incident should be disclosed honestly by nurses by consulting with the client, her family, and the entire team. The incident can be identified by open disclosure along with undertaking suitable measures on time to obstruct any negative repercussions (Vaismoradi et al., 2021). Nevertheless, this will assist in building trust as well as minimize anxiety specifically by elaborating the care plan further.

Exceptionally in certain events, the occurrence of lawful obligations in which a lawsuit can be filed by the client as well as their family members against the engaged nurses, hospital, pharmacist, and physician can make them face the court along with adverse repercussions. The civil court can support the family of the client in this case like any negligence matter. In addition, to protect patients from any harm or danger, there is 2002s Civil Liability Act and Section 22 which shall be utilizable that leads to causing danger from negligence (Brabcov et al., 2023). Besides this, it would also be vital for all nurses to abide by nursing practice standards as mentioned in NMBA as well as all ethical principles mentioned during the time of providing accurate career and treatment to patients.

Conclusion

Professional safety standards and nursing guidelines are two key foundations that nurses can use while delivering medication to patients within clinical care. The nursing practice standards as directed by NMBA should be followed by nurses to minimize medication error chances as well as to ensure the overall safety and well-being of patients. Any error found must also be documented and reported in connection with the clinical care units' procedures.

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