Medication Administration The intended use of medications is meant to improve a person’ health, it is very important the individual administering medication or self-medicating use the drugs correctly, by following the doctors’ instruction for the medication prescribed. Medication is given to diagnose, treat, and prevent illness. Medication can be very dangerous, which can potentially cause harm or even deaf if it’s not used properly.
Administering medication requires the understanding of how the medication is to enter the body such as orally, transdermal, or intravenous. It also requires the knowledge of when the medication needs to be administered, the possible side effects, and its toxicity. Doctors, nurses, and a few other …show more content…

The most common cause of errors occur when administering a drug happens when there is poor communication, problems reading directions, medical abbreviations or hand writing misunderstood, poor procedures or teachings, job stress (most common), and lack of product knowledge. It is difficult to reduce or eliminate medication errors completely when information is absent, inaccurate, contradictory, or simply not reported. It is not exact that every medication error will cause harm, but think about the undetected errors that will. The undetected errors administering medication makes assessing the effectiveness of medications errors challenging and hard to prevent. Any nurse that has made a drug error knows how stressful the situation can be. The increasing demands and the amount of patients during work load can increase the chances to drug errors. Being overworked can affect concentration and competence, which can be exacerbated by erratic working hours and stress, while complacency can also lead to mistakes. While nurse fatigue is commonly cited caused of drug errors, others include illegible physicians’ handwriting. Drug errors also miscalculations, over-dosing and under-dosing. Checking calculations and identifying any shortfall in your knowledge is a qualified ensures to keep from making a mistake.
In 1995, the FDA established the black box warning system which alert the prescribers to drugs or drug products with