The Ways To Reduce Medication Errors and Improve Patient Care Assessment 2 Answer

Rationale of Research Design Selection

A mixed method study is proposed to conduct the research for identifying ways to reduce medication errors and improve patient care in post-operative departments. Here a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques will be followed where phase 1 will comprise of a questionnaire to conduct a survey with the selected participants and phase 2 comprise of interviews conducted with selected focus group. The study is structured into two main phases and the quantitative data in first phase will dominate and guide the investigation, nesting the qualitative data and techniques allowing us a complete and profound view of the research issue under study. The mixed study is selected to get the benefits of triangulation where quantitative data will act as a baseline information system for the research to select the patients or healthcare workers for the interview (Doorenbos, 2016), while qualitative information will help in understanding the barriers and facilitators associated with the medication errors in post-operative care (Begley, 2016). 

The issue under study is related to medication errors in post-operative care where results of quantitative study results can be better studied and analyzed with the help of qualitative study and analysis. Here quantitative study will provide detailed information about breakdowns in the delivery of post-operative medication reconciliation, lack or professional communication and collaboration, stress and lack of training and knowledge provided to healthcare staff that result in errors and issues related to mismanagement of medication. The qualitative research through focus groups will provide more refined information and relevant information about perception and experience healthcare staff working on post-operative departments. The interviews will provide an insight into the factors like attitudes, low attention to medication safety, perceptions influencing decisions, workload and training provided for medication reconciliation. Therefore, a mixed study is an appropriate route to identify the answer to research question and explore the issue from different perspectives depicted through quantitative results and qualitative information about experience of nurses. 

Rationale for selection

Sampling criteria

The sampling criteria for quantitative study depends on healthcare staff members working in post-operative department of two tertiary-level hospital within the State. Here inclusion criteria focus on nurses and healthcare staff including physicians and physicians’ assistants working on ICU and post-operative care department from more than a year. The nurses and other healthcare members with a duty in other departments and those associated with ICU and post-operative department for less than 12 months are excluded

For the interview or the qualitative study analysis, nursing staff working at the post-operative department of the selected tertiary hospitals formed the focus group. This focus group includes 6 registered nurses in the hospital to conduct an exploratory study. 

This sampling method of taking the information from nurses working in ICU and post-operative departments and all healthcare members working in these departments will help in getting an insight into perception and experience of various healthcare workers related to the issue of medication errors. 

Sampling strategies

Random sampling technique is implemented to select the respondents for the quantitative surveys to be conducted using a pre-designed questionnaire. This method will give equal opportunity to every healthcare member working in the target departments to be selected for the survey (Macnee and McCabe, 2018).

Same method is applied to select the nurse practitioners working in ICU and post-operative department of the tertiary healthcare setting. 

Data collection method

The quantitative data is collected through a pre-designed questionnaire as this is an inexpensive and practical way of collecting the required information from a large number of respondents (Ellis, 2016). The actionable data or information provided by questionnaires can create new strategies and to follow the expectations of audience while covering every aspect of the topic under study.

Further, semi-structure interview method is used to collect qualitative information about training expectations, experience of nursing staff, issues and barriers faced by them while ensuring avoidance of medication errors among post-operative patients. 

As the proposed study is based on experience and issues faced by healthcare staff while ensuring medication reconciliation, it is necessary to get detailed information in the form of subjective details. It is not possible to measure experience in numeric terms (Ellis, 2016), so interview method is appropriate for the proposed research project. AT the same time to avoid the demerits of a complete qualitative study, a survey is added to ensure the reliability and validity of results of the study. 

Rational for Selecting Data Analysis Method

To analyze the qualitative, thematic analysis is implemented to focus on the certain pre-defined themes related to the issues under study. These themes are attitudes, low attention to medication safety, perceptions influencing decisions, workload and training provided for medication reconciliation. Such thematic analysis provides the advantage of flexibility providing a rich and detailed account of the collected information. This is particular required in the proposed study as we are working with subjective issues of attitudes, motivation and perception of nursing staff. Also. Thematic analysis is suggested for studies where a low level of interpretation is expected and therefore suits any study conducted by healthcare or nursing students (Pope et al., 2017). This particular method of analysis will help in gaining a rich knowledge about the issue as well as become a vehicle of presenting and treating the data as living entities resisting simple classification (Loffee and Yardley, 2017). Such an approach will lead to establishing meaning and solid findings about the barriers that result in medication errors and expectations of nursing staff about the possible course of action to avoid such errors in critical care settings. 

As nursing research is generally based on qualitative information, thematic analysis is a popular method of analysis providing descriptive data analysis and delivering better examination of narrative materials collected from interviews. 

The quantitative data collected through survey method using the questionnaire will be analyzed through statistical measures through SPSS analysis method. The questionnaire will comprise of 15 questions about medication errors like types, causes, most common errors, results of errors, etc. The questionnaire data is analyzed by performing descriptive statistical analysis (graphs, mean, and standard deviation) to act as a supportive result to confirm the subjective results obtained from qualitative interview method. This method of analysis is an efficient way to handle large set of variable data formats that will be obtained under the proposed study. Also, it will help in easy and proper compilation of data and handle the information in a systematic manner.