Impact of a medication safety educational fair on health care professionals’ knowledge and adherence to established processes for medication safety

Abstract

Introduction: Voluntary reporting of medication errors at Memorial Hermann Memorial City (MHMC) has demonstrated significant issues in a few key areas. Several errors with high risk medications were reported despite a documented second clinician check on the drug, signifying the need to refine and educate nurses on the independent double check process at our institution. Additionally, several intravenous (IV) pump programming errors and heparin errors indicate the need to reeducate on important steps during pump programming.

Research question or hypothesis: A medication safety fair improves nurses’ knowledge and compliance with safe medication practices in areas with reported medication errors.

Study Design: A single-center prospective quality improvement project

Methods: MHMC nurses who attended the medication safety fair and completed the pre- and post-survey were included. Surveys were matched using raffle ticket numbers to ensure anonymity. Descriptive statistics were used for nominal data. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks was used to compare paired surveys (IBM SPSS Statistics 24).

Results: Seventy-nine nurses completed the pre- and post-survey (75% response rate). Seventy percent of nurses have been a healthcare professional for over 5 years and 35% of nurses reported attending a previous medication safety fair. Many nurses worked in medical/surgical units (35%) or critical care units (31.6%). Statistically significant improvement in nurses’ knowledge was demonstrated in the independent double-check process (p=0.021), heparin weight protocol (p=0.008), heparin double-check protocol (p=0.022), and the Alaris Pump programming for IV fluids (p=0.001). Minimal improvement was observed in identifying that all IV medications should be traced (35.4% pre-survey vs 43% post-survey, p=0.263).

Conclusion: The medication safety fair statistically improved nurses’ knowledge in 4 of the 5 medication safety topics tested. This data emphasizes the need for continued education to ensure 100% of our nurses follow safe medication practices especially with high-risk medications.