Medication Administration Safety Flashcards
7 cards from real ISMP practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Medication Administration Safety flashcards as text
According to ISMP guidelines, what is the primary purpose of independent double-checks for high-alert medications?
Answer: Catch errors before they reach the patient
Independent double-checks are a redundancy strategy designed to intercept errors before they reach the patient, particularly for high-alert drugs with narrow therapeutic windows.
ISMP recommends that concentrated potassium chloride (KCl) solutions be stored in patient care areas under which condition?
Answer: Removed from patient care units unless absolutely necessary
ISMP recommends removing concentrated electrolyte solutions like KCl from patient care units to prevent accidental direct IV administration, which can cause fatal cardiac arrhythmias.
Which practice does ISMP strongly discourage when documenting medication doses?
Answer: Writing a trailing zero (e.g., 1.0 mg)
A trailing zero (e.g., 1.0 mg) can be misread as 10 mg if the decimal point is missed, potentially causing a 10-fold dosing error; ISMP recommends never using trailing zeros.
Bar-code medication administration (BCMA) technology is primarily used to verify which of the five rights at the bedside?
Answer: Right patient, right drug, right dose, right route, and right time
BCMA systems scan both the patient's wristband and the medication package to electronically verify all five rights simultaneously, reducing administration errors.
ISMP considers smart infusion pumps with drug libraries a critical safety tool primarily because they:
Answer: Set dose limits that alert clinicians to potentially unsafe orders
Smart pump drug libraries contain pre-programmed dose limits (soft and hard limits) that alert or prevent nurses from programming potentially unsafe infusion rates.
When a patient has a known drug allergy, ISMP recommends that the allergy be verified at which point in the medication administration process?
Answer: Before every dose administration
ISMP recommends allergy verification before every dose to ensure no new information has been added and to reduce the risk of administering an allergen.
Which of the following is an ISMP-recommended practice to prevent wrong-route errors with oral liquid medications?
Answer: Use only oral/enteral syringes that cannot connect to IV tubing
ISMP recommends using oral/enteral-specific syringes with connectors incompatible with IV lines to prevent accidental intravenous injection of oral medications.