Pharmacology, part 4: Safe Medication Administration

Hi, I'm Cathy with Level Up RN. In this video, we will be talking about safe medication administration, including the rights of medication administration and medication administration best practices. At the end of the video, I'll be giving you guys a little quiz to test your knowledge of some of the key points I'll be covering, so definitely stay tuned for that. And I will be following along with our Level Up RN Pharmacology flashcards, so if you have our flashcards, definitely pull those out so you can follow along with me. And pay close attention to the bold red text on these cards because those represent the most important facts that you are likely to get asked about on a nursing school exam.

In terms of the rights of safe medication administration, depending on what textbook or website you're looking at, you may see 5 rights of safe medication administration up to 12 rights of safe medication administration, so it really varies across sources. There are kind of five core rights that you'll find that are common across all of these sources, and this includes the right patient, the right medication, the right dose, the right route, and the right time. Other rights that may be included in your textbook include the right patient education, the right for a patient to refuse their medication, the right nursing documentation, meaning charting, and then the right assessment before and after medication administration.

In terms of the rights of safe medication administration, depending on what textbook or website you're looking at, you may see 5 rights of safe medication administration up to 12 rights of safe medication administration, so it really varies across sources. There are kind of five core rights that you'll find that are common across all of these sources, and this includes the right patient, the right medication, the right dose, the right route, and the right time. Other rights that may be included in your textbook include the right patient education, the right for a patient to refuse their medication, the right nursing documentation, meaning charting, and then the right assessment before and after medication administration.

All right, it's time for a quiz. I've got three questions for you. First question, when administering a high-alert medication, an independent double-check should be performed with a second RN. True or false? The answer is true. Question number two, low-risk medications may be left at the bedside for the patient to take at their preferred timing. True or false? The answer is false. Medications should not be left unsecured at the bedside. Question number three, if a medication error occurs, an incident report should be completed and included in the patient's medical record. True or false? The answer is false. An incident report should not be included in the patient's medical record or referred to in the patient's medical record.

All right, that's it for this video. Take care and good luck with studying.