As a result of various health concerns, children are receiving an increased number of medications while at school. In Pennsylvania, the School Code mandates a ratio of 1 certified school nurse to 1,500 students, which may mean that 1 school nurse is covering 3-5 buildings. This implies that unlicensed personnel are administering medications, a…

Medical errors and patient safety have gained increasing attention throughout all areas of medical care. Understanding patient safety in rural settings is crucial for improving care in rural communities. To describe a system to decrease medical errors and improve care in rural and frontier primary care offices. Applied Strategies for Improving…

Assessed medication administration practices among school nurses, surveying members of the National Association of School Nurses. Respondents were extremely concerned about medication administration. Errors in administering medications were reported by 48.5 percent of respondents, with missed doses the most common error. Most nurses followed…

Background: Medication errors can result in harm, unless barriers to prevent them are present. Drug administration errors are less likely to be prevented, because they occur in the last stage of the drug distribution process. This is especially the case in non-alert patients, as patients often form the final barrier to prevention of errors.…

Intended for use in Florida training programs for caregivers of infants and toddlers with disabilities, this guide presents an overview of the Model of Interdisciplinary Training for Children with Handicaps (MITCH); offers a user's guide to the series; and provides specific information for presenting Module 8, which focuses on health care…

Patient identification (ID) errors occurring during the medication administration process can be fatal. The aim of this study is to determine whether differences in nurses' behaviors and visual scanning patterns during the medication administration process influence their capacities to identify patient ID errors. Nurse participants (n = 20)…

Causal factors contributing to errors in medication administration should be thoroughly investigated, focusing on systems rather than individual nurses. Unless systemic causes are addressed, many errors will go unreported for fear of reprisal. (Contains 42 references.) (SK)

Purpose: We explore how nursing home characteristics affect the number of lawsuits filed against the facilities in Florida during the period from 1997 to 2001. Design and Methods: We examined data from 478 nursing homes in 30 Florida counties from 1997 to 2001. We obtained the data from Westlaw's Adverse Filings: Lawsuits database, the Online…

These guidelines present standards for administering medication in Maryland schools, both prescribed and over-the-counter medications. In general, medication during school hours is discouraged unless necessary. The guidelines recommend that, whenever possible, children administer their own medication under appropriate supervision. Specifically,…

This article reports school nurses' experiences with medication administration through qualitative analyses of a written survey and focus groups. From a random sample of 1,000 members of the National Association of School Nurses, 649 (64.9%) school nurses completed the survey. The quantitative data from the survey were presented previously.…

This is the first study to explore lexical and grammatical development in a deaf child diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Inattentive sub-type (ADHDI). The child, whose family language was Spanish, was fitted with a cochlear implant (CI) when she was 18 months old. ADHDI, for which she was prescribed medication, was diagnosed…

Nursing educators and administrators are concerned about medication errors made by students which jeopardize patient safety. The inability to conceptualize and calculate medication dosages, often related to math anxiety, is implicated in such errors. A computer-assisted instruction (CAI) program is seen as a viable method of allowing students to…

We describe a 3-hour session that provides students with the opportunity to review basic lab concepts and important techniques using real life scenarios. We began with two separate student-engaged discussions to remind/reinforce some basic concepts in physiology and review calculations with respect to chemical compounds. This was followed by…

This commentary on a 1994 article by Wolfensberger on the current mental retardation scene, in which he describes prescription psychoactive drugs as health destroying and life destroying, criticizes Wolfensberger's comments on "psychoactive medications," noting "elementary errors,""apparently concocted figures," and…

To perform well on any challenging task, it is necessary to evaluate your performance so that you can learn from errors. Recent theoretical and experimental work suggests that the neural sequellae of error commission in a dorsal anterior cingulate circuit index a type of contingency- or reinforcement-based learning, while activation in a rostral…