Development of a Medication Safety Science Curriculum for Nursing Students

BACKGROUND Medication errors, now thought to be 4 times greater than previous estimates, harm patients, families, health care institutions, and nurses themselves, who are second victims of their mistakes. PROBLEM Current nursing education may lack coherent medication safety frameworks other than the classic Five Rights construct. APPROACH This project piloted an educational intervention with senior associate degree nursing students based on high-reliability organization (HRO) safety principles. OUTCOMES Subjects evaluated the HRO safety concepts learning experience positively and improved pretest to posttest scores by 74%. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrates subjects' ready acceptance and comprehension of HRO safety theory as applied to medication safety, an alternative to the Five Rights construct.