Administering opioids to children is a delicate task. Too often, mistakes can be made.<\/p>\n
An interesting Canadian study has revealed the vast majority of never events in opioid administration to children were avoidable. Many American studies of a similar nature have arrived at the same conclusions. Root causes tended to fall into one or more of four categories: communication, policies\/procedures, training and equipment\/environment.<\/p>\n
The most common reasons for opioid medication errors were: a lack of clear guidelines either for the infusion adjustment rate or for weaning the patient off the medication; no standard opioid concentrations; no existing policies in place to follow for administering opioids; and no guidelines on properly monitoring and charting pain levels, level of consciousness and\/or vital signs. <\/p>\n
There were other factors involved, such as medical personnel’s level of fatigue and the number of patient transfers between units. Although the focus of the study was to fix what could be (more…)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Administering opioids to children is a delicate task. Too often, mistakes can be made. An interesting Canadian study has revealed the vast majority of never events in opioid administration to children were avoidable. Many American studies of a similar nature…<\/span><\/p>\n