Medication Safety
Safety and quality of healthcare have been issues of increasing prominence over the years. Despite Australia having one of the best quality health care systems in the world and serving a significant population size, there have been constant efforts to ensure that the quality and safety of healthcare in the country is maintained (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2017). The healthcare providers, users, and planners have engaged in continued efforts aimed at improving and maintaining the health care services performance. In the bid to achieve this goal, the Australian Commission developed the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) standards designed to drive safety and quality systems implementation, along with improving the healthcare quality in Australia (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in HealthCare, 2012). The standards provide a quality assurance mechanism that tests if the appropriate systems are in place to make sure minimum quality and safety standards are met. Also, the standards ensure that there is a mechanism for quality improvement allowing health services to achieve developmental and aspirational goals (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in HealthCare, 2017). Drawing on Standard 4 of the NSQHS, this paper will outline the nurse’s responsibilities in regards to safe medication administration.
Standard 4 of the NSQHS is on medication safety; it describes the strategies and systems of ensuring safe prescription, dispensation, and administration of appropriate medicines by clinicians to the informed patients. It should be noted that while a range of participants are involved in making sure that there is effective and safe healthcare services delivery, as key healthcare providers, nurses have a significant responsibility in regards to medication safety (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in HealthCare, 2012).
(I.C. RDS 3300)