Posted: May 22nd, 2024

Analyzing a Current Health Care Problem or Issue NHS-FPX4000:

Analyzing a Current Health Care Problem or Issue

NHS-FPX4000: Developing a Healthcare Perspective
Title: Addressing the Opioid Crisis in the United States:

1. Description of the Opioid Crisis and Its Possible Causes

The opioid crisis in the United States has become a significant public health issue, resulting in a high prevalence of opioid use disorders, overdose deaths, and associated social and economic consequences (Volkow et al., 2019). This crisis is characterized by the misuse and abuse of prescription opioids, as well as the use of illicit opioids such as heroin and fentanyl (Scholl et al., 2019). Possible causes of the opioid crisis include the overprescription of opioids for pain management, the lack of adequate education and awareness about the risks associated with opioid use, and the availability of cheap, illicit opioids (Kolodny et al., 2020).

2. Scholarly Information on the Opioid Crisis

Scholarly articles provide valuable insights into the opioid crisis and its possible causes. Volkow et al. (2019) discuss the epidemiology of the opioid crisis, highlighting the increase in opioid-related deaths and the shift from prescription opioids to illicit opioids. Scholl et al. (2019) examine the role of prescription opioids in the crisis, emphasizing the need for improved prescribing practices and patient education. Kolodny et al. (2020) explore the social and economic factors contributing to the crisis, such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of access to healthcare.

3. Analysis of the Opioid Crisis

The opioid crisis affects individuals, families, and communities across the United States. It is particularly prevalent in rural areas and among individuals with lower socioeconomic status (Scholl et al., 2019). The importance of addressing this crisis lies in its significant impact on public health, the healthcare system, and the economy. Examples of the consequences of the opioid crisis include increased healthcare costs, strain on emergency services, and the loss of productivity due to opioid-related disabilities and deaths (Volkow et al., 2019).

4. Potential Solutions for the Opioid Crisis

Potential solutions for the opioid crisis include:

– Improving prescribing practices and monitoring of opioid prescriptions (Dowell et al., 2019)
– Increasing access to evidence-based addiction treatment, such as medication-assisted treatment (MAT) (Volkow et al., 2019)
– Implementing harm reduction strategies, such as naloxone distribution and safe injection facilities (Hawk et al., 2019)

Implementing these solutions would require collaboration among healthcare providers, policymakers, and community organizations. Ignoring the opioid crisis would lead to continued loss of life, increased healthcare costs, and ongoing social and economic consequences.

5. Ethical Principles in Implementing Potential Solutions

Implementing potential solutions to the opioid crisis must consider the ethical principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice. Beneficence involves promoting the well-being of individuals affected by the crisis through effective prevention and treatment strategies. Nonmaleficence requires minimizing the potential harms associated with interventions, such as the risk of diversion of MAT medications (Tsai et al., 2019). Autonomy entails respecting the right of individuals to make informed decisions about their care, while justice demands equitable access to prevention and treatment services (Hurst, 2019).

Implementing these solutions would necessitate increased funding for addiction treatment services, training for healthcare providers, and public education campaigns. It would also require addressing the social determinants of health that contribute to the opioid crisis, such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of access to healthcare (Dasgupta et al., 2018).

References:

Dasgupta, N., Beletsky, L., & Ciccarone, D. (2018). Opioid crisis: No easy fix to its social and economic determinants. _American Journal of Public Health, 108_(2), 182-186. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304187

Dowell, D., Haegerich, T., & Chou, R. (2019). No shortcuts to safer opioid prescribing. _New England Journal of Medicine, 380_(24), 2285-2287. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1904190

Hawk, K. F., Vaca, F. E., & D’Onofrio, G. (2019). Reducing fatal opioid overdose: Prevention, treatment and harm reduction strategies. _Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 92_(3), 453-459.

Hurst, S. (2019). Vulnerability in research and health care; Describing the elephant in the room? _Bioethics, 33_(1), 22-29. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12495

Kolodny, A., Frieden, T. R., & Sharfstein, J. M. (2020). The opioid epidemic: What we should learn from the past. _Public Health Reports, 135_(1_suppl), 32S-38S. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033354920921582

Scholl, L., Seth, P., Kariisa, M., Wilson, N., & Baldwin, G. (2019). Drug and opioid-involved overdose deaths – United States, 2013-2017. _MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 67_(51-52), 1419-1427. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm675152e1

Tsai, A. C., Kiang, M. V., Barnett, M. L., Beletsky, L., Keyes, K. M., McGinty, E. E., Smith, L. R., Strathdee, S. A., Wakeman, S. E., & Venkataramani, A. S. (2019). Stigma as a fundamental hindrance to the United States opioid overdose crisis response. _PLoS Medicine, 16_(11), e1002969. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002969

Volkow, N. D., Jones, E. B., Einstein, E. B., & Wargo, E. M. (2019). Prevention and treatment of opioid misuse and addiction: A review. _JAMA Psychiatry, 76_(2), 208-216. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.3126

NHS-FPX4000: Developing a Healthcare Perspective

Describe the health care problem or issue you selected for use in Assessment 2 and provide details about it.
Explore your chosen topic. For this, you should use the first four steps of the Socratic Problem-Solving Approach to aid your critical thinking. This approach was introduced in Assessment 2.
Identify possible causes for the problem or issue.
Use scholarly information to describe and explain the health care problem or issue and identify possible causes for it.
Identify at least three scholarly or academic peer-reviewed journal articles about the topic.
You may find the How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles? library guide helpful in locating appropriate references.
You may use articles you found while working on Assessment 2 or you may search the Capella library for other articles.
You may find the applicable Undergraduate Library Research Guide helpful in your search.
Review the Think Critically About Source Quality to help you complete the following:
Assess the credibility of the information sources.
Assess the relevance of the information sources.
Analyze the health care problem or issue.
Describe the setting or context for the problem or issue.
Describe why the problem or issue is important to you.
Identify groups of people affected by the problem or issue.
Provide examples that support your analysis of the problem or issue.
Discuss potential solutions for the health care problem or issue.
Describe what would be required to implement a solution.
Describe potential consequences of ignoring the problem or issue.
Provide the pros and cons for one of the solutions you are proposing.
Explain the ethical principles (Beneficence, Nonmaleficence, Autonomy, and Justice) if potential solution was implemented.
Describe what would be necessary to implement the proposed solution.
Explain the ethical principles that need to be considered (Beneficence, Nonmaleficence, Autonomy, and Justice) if the potential solution was implemented.
Provide examples from the literature to support the points you are making
The following resources provide information about evidence-based practice:
Macias, C. G., Loveless, J. N., Jackson, A. N., & Srinivasan, S. (2017). Delivering value through evidence-based practice. Clinical Pediatric Emergency Medicine, 18(2), 89–97.
Thomas, S. J. (2016). Does evidence-based health care have room for the self? Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 22(4), 502–508.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (n.d.). EPC evidence-based reports. http://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/evidence-bas…

Analyzing a Current Health Care Problem or Issue

NHS-FPX4000: Developing a Healthcare Perspective

 

Applying Ethical Principles
It is impossible to overestimate the significance of pharmaceutical errors in healthcare, which I have already mentioned. In this investigation, concerns about patient safety that unintentionally occur when getting medications will be explored upon. Healthcare providers should take all reasonable precautions to ensure patient safety. Patient safety should be promoted in all facets of healthcare. If nurses were able to implement a culture where drug errors were a top priority, it would be a significant step in preventing those errors from frequently occurring. Everyone involved in the healthcare system should discuss how to make it better. Improved infrastructure would also be a big help in resolving this issue. Pharmaceutical errors do not only happen in hospitals. Medication mistakes may accompany the patient back to their home or nursing home (Fatima, Douglas & Richard, 2020).
Elements of the Problem/Issue
Studies show that patients receiving care from hospital medical professionals are susceptible to drug mistakes and potential harm. Patient safety issues are typically caused by medication errors, which are preventable adverse outcomes (Albara, Suzanne, Joanne, & Val, 2020). Medication errors can be caused by three main sources: not understanding the directions, fulfilling the order too swiftly, and communicating with other healthcare professionals.
When a nurse disregards her incapacity to grasp the instructions and nonetheless provides the authorized dose, the wrong medication or the erroneous dosage may be given. A patient may experience terrible side effects if they receive an excessive amount of one drug. For instance, sliding-scale insulin has parameters that determine how much to provide dependent on the patient’s blood sugar level. If you don’t understand the parameters, you might administer too much insulin and cause hypoglycemia in the patient (Albara, Suzanne, Joanne, & Val, 2020).
Rushing through an order to finish it can cause you to miss a mistake that the doctor might have made. Without taking the time to read the order carefully and determine whether what was ordered for the patient makes sense, the patient could suffer severe harm. A person who is prescribed Lasix because their lower extremities retain fluid is an example of this. In addition to causing them to lose vital electrolytes, which can cause a host of other problems, failing to review the most current lab findings could force all the fluid to come off them. Therefore, the key to avoiding a medicine blunder is to carefully read the order.
The outcomes of poor doctor-nurse communication can be disastrous. Negative outcomes for a patient could result from failing to inform a doctor that a particular order might cause more damage than good to a patient. A doctor prescribing MiraLAX to a patient is an illustration of this. Because it is ordered, new nurses will provide it, even when the patient is experiencing bowel movements. Dehydration could result from this, which can cause a diverse range of problems. The nurse could hold the order or inform the doctor that they are using the restroom and stop the order to prevent fluid imbalances.
Analysis
Since becoming a registered nurse, I made it a critical part of my practice to make sure I completely understand the medication that I am administering to my patients prior to them being given. I am the last resort in the line of defense before they can receive the medication that has been prescribed by a medical professional. Making a mistake when administering medication or failing to spot a mistake made within the medication order can result in serious harm to the patient. When I am unsure about any orders or prescriptions given, I make sure to question and receive other people’s opinions, preferably seasoned nurses, or the provider themselves, to make sure that I avoid making a mistake. Anyone can make a mistake. If a mistake were made, it is best to inform the manager about the error because it can help improve strategies to prevent the error from happening again, therefore, reducing medication error frequency.
The Context for Patient Medication Errors
Another contributing factor to patient medication errors is the constant evolution of healthcare. It is changing constantly with daily research being done to progress medicine. As an employee in medicine, we must make sure we are up to date on these advances in healthcare. It is highly exhausting to learn the newest and best information that is other it. It is also a challenge to always provide top-notch healthcare to our patients when there are staffing shortages, unsafe assignments, and unavailable equipment that is needed to perform our duties. Any arrangement of these factors can result in unsatisfactory healthcare and increase the likelihood of medication errors.
Populations Affected by Patient Safety Issues
Medication errors do not have a stereotype. Any demographic group can become a victim of a medication error. As healthcare providers, we try to notice any mistake that is made including medication errors, but because we are human, that is not always possible. We can strive to make as few mistakes as possible, but even then, some adverse effects can be unknown. Every shift, I notice where an error could have been made had I not been more vigilant and paying attention to my orders. The best way to become excellent at identifying errors and preventing harm is knowing the medication you are attempting to give and asking questions at any point where there is uncertainty. Due to this, I eliminate any mistakes that might occur which prevents my patients from suffering an avoidable injury.
Considering Options
To reduce medication errors, healthcare professionals could implement some of these strategies. Education on carefully reviewing orders and querying the physician if an order doesn’t seem correct is a step in preventing errors from happening. As a new grad nurse, I was always unsure when to question a physician about an order. Now after two years, I have found that sometimes orders get put in on the wrong patient and it was a good step that I questioned the orders that didn’t seem to relate to my patient’s primary complaint. Another is assigning fewer patients so that the nurse can focus on a smaller ratio. Anyone working in healthcare currently knows that depends on staffing. Reviewing the orders that have been placed in detail is the easiest and most obvious course of action. Taking your time and avoiding rushing through the task is a key step in minimizing prescription error rates. The opportunity of sitting down and carefully reading directions would lessen the likelihood of medication errors. Prescription errors would be less likely if it was possible to sit down and attentively study orders.
Questioning a doctor when they issue an order that appears to be erroneous is one of the hardest things to undertake. The ability to discuss it with the doctor is a key method where drug errors could be prevented. Although incredibly intelligent, doctors are nonetheless human and fall short just like everyone else. Because of this, it’s crucial for nurses to contact them if an instruction seems strange. The patient could avoid injury thanks to this very little interaction. The interaction between healthcare professionals is one element that I believe is neglected. I believe it is crucial to note the time you administered painkillers in your report. A medication error can be avoided by having open communication.
Solution
It is impossible to find only one solution for the treatment of medical errors because there is a variety of contributing factors that lead to the error occurring, which means there needs to be a solution for every possible factor out there. Improving communication between physicians and nurses, querying orders when clarification is needed, lowering patient ratios, and having adequate time to carefully review orders in full detail could improve the prevention of medication errors. As healthcare professionals, all we can do is continue in our efforts to reduce the occurrence of drug errors.
Implementation
Every healthcare worker signed an oath before beginning their employment. One of the most important aspects of that oath is nonmaleficence, or the duty to do no harm. The best care is given to each patient as part of our effort to show this. Medication mistakes can be considerably reduced by putting these changes into practice. A number of these adjustments must be made and implemented by the person. Management is unable to use them precisely. The greatest way to lessen prescription errors, in my opinion, is to employ these strategies.
Conclusion
Eliminating drug mistakes won’t ever be successful 100%. It is impossible to totally eradicate drug errors because mistakes will always be made by people. On the other hand, the implementation of some strategies discussed along with increasing healthcare professional awareness could significantly help minimize the frequency of medication errors which in turn would provide the patients with the best care possible. It is crucial that nurses comprehend that implementing these measures is not intended to make their jobs harder, but rather to safeguard both the patient and their professional license.
 
References
Alomari, A., Sheppard‐Law, S., Lewis, J., & Wilson, V. (2020, July 6). Effectiveness of Clinical Nurses’ interventions in reducing medication errors in a paediatric ward. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 29(17–18), 3403–3413. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15374
Alqenae, F. A., Steinke, D., & Keers, R. N. (2020, March 3). Prevalence and Nature of Medication Errors and Medication-Related Harm Following Discharge from Hospital to Community Settings: A Systematic Review. Drug Safety, 43(6), 517–537. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40264-020-00918-3
Athanasakis, E. (2019, June 6). A meta‐synthesis of how registered nurses make sense of their lived experiences of medication errors. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 28(17–18), 3077–3095. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.14917
Secginli, S., Nahcivan, N. O., Bahar, Z., Fernandez, R., & Lapkin, S. (2021, October 8). Nursing Students’ Intention to Report Medication Errors. Nurse Educator, Publish Ahead of Print. https://doi.org/10.1097/nne.0000000000001105

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Tags: Addressing the Opioid Crisis in the United States, Analyzing a Current Health Care Problem or Issue, NHS-FPX4000: Developing a Healthcare Perspective