The Six Rights of Medication Administration Sample Essay

The Six Rights of Medication Administration Sample Essay The safety and security of a human’s life depend on following the six rights of medication administration. Every nurse should learn how to prepare and administer the medications no matter what kind of policy or what procedures he or she has to follow. These six rights are the right drug, dose, route, time, patient, and documentation. Knowing this info is essential for nursing practice as it influences the quality of life of the patients. The right drug is the one which label has been checked three times. One of the checks includes looking at the expiration date. What can this right influence if not followed? What can make a nurse forget about this right? Despite the fact that the answer to the first question is obvious, there are cases when the check is not performed. The most common reason for this is being exhausted. If the management of the hospital doesn’t stick to the laws that define a number of working hours, the safety of patients’ lives is questionable. The right dose can save someone’s life while the wrong one can lead even to death. What can make a nurse give the patient the wrong dose? A wrong prescription made by the doctor or the wrong interpretation of it will lead to taking an inadequate dosage of the drug. This happens when there’s a huge flow of patients in periods of epidemic. If this happens on a regular basis, the management of the hospital should conduct the investigation to find out the initial reason for this. The right time defines the efficiency of the drug that the patient takes. Each drug has some peculiarities that a nurse should keep in mind. There are two categories of drugs such as that are taking at a specific time of day or night and the ones that are taken on a call. The goal of the nurse is to set the notifications the way the process of providing the drugs to the patients could be efficient. The right patient is the right person whom the nurse should give the drug. If the nurse gives the drug to another person, the consequences of this action can be negative. The reason for doing this can be laziness of the personnel or the illusion of good relationships between the nurse and the patient. In the first case, the management of the hospital should take care of this. In the second case, the nurse should check the data using the MAR, the information band of the patient and ask the patient to say the name and the date of birth. The right documentation and route are the points that are mostly ignored by the nurses. This can lead to unexpected consequences in both cases. If the medicine is supposed to be taken through the injection, all the other ways are considered as wrong ones. A harmful impact causes inevitable results. The right documentation can prevent any further mistakes regarding prescribing and taking drugs in the future. Knowing and sticking to 6 rights of administration will lower the chance to make a medical error in any situation with any patient. These rights seem unimportant and sometimes they become annoying especially if there’s a big number of patients. The nurse can influence positively or negatively on the outcome of the disease, so ignoring the rights shouldn’t be treated as a normal common practice.