Medication is a kind of medical service and a therapeutic nursing function which takes large portion of nursing service and requires complicated procedures. So many different medical personnel should be involved and cooporate each other in order to accomplish medication.
Medication is also a vital nursing service, So nurse feels heavy responsibi lity in that she gives medication to the patient finally, so she has much responsibility if medication error is happened. Therefore it seems very important to clarify the problem of medication system and method, and find the subculture of medication situation because it may promote nursing productivity.
The study was conducted to
1. Describe and interpret medication situation.
2. Find out the problem of medication system and method and on alternatives.
3. Compare the medication system and method of hospitals which are located in Seoul with object hospital
Ethnographic methodology was used to study medication situation by doing participant observation and interview of health care personnel. Ten nurses and three nurse aids were interviewed. Two residents and internists, two phamacists and two accountants were also interviewed.
Data was obtained and analized according to Developmental Research Sequence introduced by Spradly. On the basis of this data the results were as follows.
1. The overall flow of medication system was devided into six stage : first, checking doctor´s or-der :second writing doctor´s order, : third, transfering slip into the related departments such as account department, pharmacy : fourth, distribution of medication from pharmacy to unit : fifth, identifing medication by nurses : and finally, medicating to the patient.
Behaviorors have been under a lot of stress in that they have to do much works, especially paperworks, So too much time were needed. They also have been suffered interpersonal conflicts among health care personnel and role conflicts in the process of doing medication service.
2. In the process of checking order, the problem was that too much time was required for checking order and paperwork. The more the order changes the more the paperwork is.
Nurses have been suffering difficulties in calling internist in order to get bill. Even if writing down slip for medication order is doctor´s job, Sometimes nurse has been expected to write slip by doctors or nurse would write slip beacuse of two much complexities and efforts for calling doctors.
If the slip were incorrect, much time and complicated procedures were more required for correcting it. So delay of administering drug would be resulted consequently.
Drugs were delivered from pharmacy to units by delivery agent and phamacist. But because drugs were delivered without arranging room number of patient. Nurse should rearrange drugs in order of the room number So it had made waste time and effort, and Even when emergency drugs were needed, Prompt delivery of drug was not easy be-cause of many reasons.
For nurses, it took too long in the identification of the right drug. Actually nurses have heavy bur-den when medication error happens because nurse is the final actor who gives medication to the patient, So every three shift nurse ought to check drugs as soon as every shift begins. That´s why it took too much time due to repeated confirming procedure.
When nurses had to go patient room in order to give medications, there were difficulties in watching patient until the patient take medicine correctly. So it was impossible to check every patient wheather he took medicine or not especially in hectic situation.
3. There were many hospitals in Seoul which have similar medication system and method as object hospital according to the results of questionaire. This means that many hospitals have been suffering srimilar problems which ;were identified in object hospital.
4. Recommendations for promoting simplification of medication system and method were the following : Redesigning of slip from two pieces of paper into one : early discharge announcement system, and slip confirming through computer and controlling of period of prescreption from one day to two or three days : designing personal drug storage box for each patient and using it. If nurses follow the recommendations, they will make medication short & simple, and also have enough time of direct nursing care
5. Even though there were many difficulties in medicating patients. Medication itself has been considered as a caring among nurses because it makes rapport between nurse and patient. So nurses had better accept medication as a portionof nusing service not a original portion of phamacist.
There are some limits in this research in terms of confining to only one unit of one hospital, and treating it especially in view of nurses´ aspects, So further researchs should be continnued from various kinds of viewpoints of doctors, phamacists and so on. .
Especially esthnographic study of computerized medication system and method seems to be followed.
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