Health care professionals should be innately committed to promoting ethical practice in their work settings. Achieving this role requires a commitment to addressing current and emerging issues hampering patient outcomes. To implement barcode medication administration, organizational leaders should be committed to change, supporting evidence-based interventions, and attaining a harmless workplace. For barcode scanning to work effectively, organizations should have functioning hardware to provide the appropriate preventive effect on errors (Mulac et al., 2021). As a result, acquiring the necessary infrastructure is essential for successful implementation. Organizational leaders should further ensure nursing professionals have acquired adequate skills for technology use to prevent user-centered risks. These interventions demonstrate a desire to benefit patients (beneficence) and prevent harm (nonmaleficence).
Ethical practice implies promoting a practice that adheres to the ethical principles of care. These include beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice (Medical Protection, 2023). Implementing barcode administration would align with the objectives of beneficence since it seeks to maximize good for others, particularly patients. Nonmaleficence would also be achieved since it focuses on preventing harm (Girdler et al., 2019). Autonomy involves respecting the patient’s right to self-determination, while justice involves treating patients equally and equitably. In this context, beneficence and nonmaleficence would be the dominant guiding principles when implementing barcode medication administration.
Conclusion
Nurses encounter many issues with profound implications for patient care and health processes. Medication errors are such issues due to their adverse impacts on patients, nurses, and health care systems. As explained in this paper, medication errors increase hospitalizations, treatment costs, and mortality rates. Nurses who commit errors could experience second-victim syndrome. Addressing this issue requires an in-depth understanding of causes and potential solutions. Barcode medication administration prevents errors through drug verification and can be implemented if a health care facility has the proper infrastructure to support it.
References
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