Medication Safety Practices in Clinical Nursing: Nurses' Characteristics, Skills, Competencies, Clinical Processes, and Environment.

Background: An important aspect of patient safety is the safe medication administration to patients. Although preventive measures have been integrated in practice, deviations from medication safety still exist. To minimise medication errors' occurrence, organisations and nurses continuously develop the clinical field with practices and interventions to ensure maintenance of safety. Aim: To discuss the original research evidence about nursing medication safety practices which are related to (a) nurses' characteristics, skills and competencies, (b) clinical processes and (c) clinical environment. Design and methods: This is a discussion article that draws on original research evidence about medication safety practices in clinical nursing practice. Literature retrieved from searches in databases: PUBMED, BNI, CINAHL, Wiley Online library and ScienceDirect. Specific inclusion and exclusion criteria were set. Results and Discussion: The medication safety practices concerned nurses' characteristics (knowledge, experience), skills and competencies (e.g. self-awareness and vigilance), clinical processes (e.g. additional 'Rights' to the traditional '5 Rights'), and clinical environment (e.g. ward design). Conclusion and Implications: Each of the safety practices is significant and contributes to patient safety in a unique way. The heart of all medicine safety practices is their practicality, simplicity, effectiveness, positive contribution to improve the safety culture and the learning outcomes for all clinical teams. Any of the mentioned practices can be used as initiative or resource for either the frontline or senior management nurses to integrate them in their own practice on a ward level, hospital policies, clinical environments and shape the future of medication safety culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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