Understanding Pharmacology is vital towards becoming a Medical Assistant. This is to help prevent medical errors and substance abuse. The knowledge of proper administration of medications is important because it protects the patient and the medical professional. Knowing what your job requires and the proper training; insures that you obey the laws and ethics of Pharmacology.
The subtopics that were most appealing about Pharmacology are administration of medications, medical errors and prevention, and substance abuse. Remembering that medications have a potential to cause serious harm to patients is vital in the medical field.
That’s why it is important to know how to properly administer the medications to your patient. In the health-care profession the person which administers, should always asses a patient’s health status and receive an updated medication history of that patient. According to (Moini, 2013), when administering medication it is important to safeguard the patient by using the seven rights of proper administration, which are right patient, drug, dose, route, time, technique, and right documentation. Having the right patient insures that the correct medication is administered.
It is important to ask the patient his or her name; if the patient is unresponsive then you should check their chart. All of the rights help me in my career to uphold the proper care for my patients.
This will help me prevent medication errors in the medical field. Medication errors cause tens of thousands of Americans death each year. Which can be prevented if more medical professionals use the right abbreviations, use better communication, input the right information on the patients chart, label the medication appropriately, and having the good hygiene in the medical facility.
Using abbreviations while writing on a patients chart or writing a prescription for them is vital, if you don’t know the right abbreviations for that medication or diagnosis. If you put the wrong abbreviation on a document it could cause the patient to either have an allergic reaction or even worse cause death.
This can put your career in jeopardy and cause you to lose licenses. It is important to have a good professional relationship with your physician as a medical assistant in case you may not know what the doctor has written for the patient.
This can cause an error that might be terminal to the patient. According to (Wolf, Z 2004), federal initiatives emphasize that medical facilities should enforce compliance programs and reporting systems to encourage all employees to report failures to deliver safe patient care. Which will make nurses and medical assistants be more aware of what they are doing for the patient and the hospital.
Having a risk management department is good to use to minimize more medication errors and examine the risk that has caused them. This department is mostly used in larger facilities.
This department identifies problems, investigates incidents, and provides recommendations, which help improve patient care. They also communicate with nurses and medical assistants to help them apply their knowledge to about medical errors. To avoid medical errors you should ask patients about their allergies or health conditions. This is just in case the patient is taking any other medication that might have an adverse effect on the patient. Ensuring that you have no distractions during medication administration can also be helpful with errors in the medical field.
Paying attention to the dosage amount is also a vital factor in preventing these errors. According to (Calligaris,L 2005), incident reporting and documentation of almost missed errors are described as useful sources of information, and Healthcare Failure Mode Effect Analysis (HFMEA) and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) are seen as extremely useful methods for process analysis. This type of documentation is used in many medical facilities to help medical professionals not make the same mistake again. Having age appropriate written information for patients is also a way to help with errors.
Making sure the patient knows when, how, and were to administer their medication is important so that the medication can be effective. The patient should be aware of the adverse effects while taking any medication. Knowing what other medications your patient is taking is important because that particular type of medication might have a negative effect on the patient. Having knowledge about medication and the administration process is important so you can relay the right information to your patients.
Making sure they know the side effects of the drug and if the drug has a tendency to become addictive is vital for the patient to know. Substance abuse is a major issue with patients and medical professions in our society today. Substance abuse is when a person becomes dependent on a drug not for pain anymore but, just to feel the relaxing and psychological effects of that drug.
Which then a patient may become substance-dependent and show the following signs; tolerance withdrawal, increasing consumption, desire to quit, and they continue to use while understanding the physiologic and psychological effects of the medication.
This is when dependence on the medication comes in play and following after is addiction. According to (Moini,J 2013), addiction is progressive, chronic abuse of a substance that causes one to use the substance frequently not considering the serious health and social consequences. As some studies show about 9% of Americans are dependent on some type of substance.
The most common are prescription medications like sedatives, or the ones that have opioids and methamphetamines in them. Sedatives are used for sleep disorders and certain forms of epilepsy.
This type can cause dependence and can lead to a negative effect on the patient. Opioid addiction can have a tendency to develop rapidly and the withdrawals are not pleasant. They type of medications they have opioids in them are used to help with severe pain, diarrhea, and persistent cough. It is important not to overdose on this medication because it is extremely dangerous and almost fatal. That is why you should know how to properly inform your patients about their medication and the effects from it.
In the medical field it is important that you obtain all the knowledge possible. This so you are able to relay the appropriate information to your patients. That is why these subjects caught my attention while learning about pharmacology. Knowing how to accurately administer medication is important to know so you will not cause harm or even worse death to a patient. Medical errors and substance abuse can as well have the same affect. A medical assistant is a multi-skilled health professional.
Medical assistants work throughout the medical facility as members of a health care delivery team performing administrative and clinical procedures. For example medical assistants perform various duties to help the facility keep going; scheduling, greeting patients, vital signs, assisting the physician with procedures, performing ECGs and lab duties including phlebotomy and injections.
It is important that you know your job skills and know how to perform them properly. Learning more about pharmacology helped me in many ways to be more knowledgeable. Pharmacology is the study of drugs and how they affect the body.
Being able to know how most medications affect one’s body is vital as a medical assistant. As a medical assistant learning about pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics will help me differentiate between medications. The least appealing about pharmacology is dosage it was good to learn but was somewhat difficult. I know it is important to make sure you have the right amount administered to your patient and the right medication. All of these subjects are vital to learn towards becoming a medical assistant and becoming one of the best.
Reference 1) Wolf, Z. , Serembus, J. (2004, August 01). MEDICATION ERRORS: Ending the blame-game. Nursing Management, (8), 41, retrieved from http://elibrary. bigchalk. com. ezp-02. lirn. net 2) Jahangir Moini (2008) Pharmacology/ Essentials for Health Professionals Julie Leven Alexander:
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 3) Shrank, W. , Avorn, J. (2007, May 01). Educating Patients About Their Medications: The Potential And Limitations Of Written Drug Information. Health Affairs, (3), 731, retrieved from http://elibrary. bigchalk.com. ezp-02. lirn. net 4) L Calligaris, (2005, December)
Medical errors and clinical risk management: state of the art Acta Otorhinolaryngology Ital. 2005 December; 25(6): 339–346. PMCID: PMC2639900 5) Janeczko, D. (2012). The future of meJaneczko, D. (2012). The future of medical assisting. AMT Events, 29(3), 164-165. Retrieved from http://search. proquest. com/docview/1115584371? accountid=158486dical assisting. AMT Events, 29(3), 164-165. Retrieved from http://search. proquest. com/docview/1115584371? accountid=158486.