Nurses’ confidence in medication safety

Johanna Huoviala and Shirley Nykänen are Bachelor students in Nursing Program and RN, MSc (Health Care) Anja Mikkola is their Senior lecturer in Lapland University of Applied Sciences.

The authors participated an intensive week course by Medico collaboration funded by NordPlus. The intensive week was held in The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Ålesund, Norway from 4th to 8th March 2019.

MEDICO collaboration

This collaboration has started in 2011 in Rovaniemi at the conference for Nurse Educators. This cooperation has widened to 12 Universities that has Nurse education in Nordic and Baltic countries. The participating countries are Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Åland.

The aims of MEDICO collaboration are to promote and improve patient- and medication safety by developing nurse education. Methods of development work includes two types of cooperation: The first is organizing conferences (Forums for Nurse Educators) and the second is involving the students with this development work by intensive weeks dealing medication safety in nursing and health care.

Aims of the intensive week

The course aimed to support nurse students’ confidence in medication safety, bring up the differences in the cultures in medication safety, and promote exchange of experiences and best practices between Nordic and Baltic countries.

There were total of 40 participants which includes teachers, bachelor and master students coming from participating countries. The knowledge and experiences of medication safety shared by the participants from different countries were acknowledge and compared (Photo 1).

The presentations and workshops showed that there were similarities and differences in each country for example the guidelines of the rights of medication administration.

Photo 1. Students sharing their information from Finland.

Four themes of the week

The program of the intensive course had four themes that covers the topic of the day including safety culture (Lykkegaard Sørensen, 2019), medication safety and nursing (Hansen-Lunde & Skogster, 2019), patient’s perspective – involvement in medication therapy (Suikkanen & Sainio, 2019) and interprofessional collaboration (Mikkola & Westergren, 2019).

There were combination of methods of learning applied to gain in-depth understanding of medication safety. After the contact with the teachers/lecturers the students started in different workshops with these four themes in the leadership of four Master students. The guidance was organized by the teachers that were responsible for the themes. (The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), 2019.)

During the week students were guided how to prepare a scientific poster but also if they need to draw attention. The student groups prepared also posters of the themes of this week (Photo 3). (Hrönn-Svavarsdottir & Olsen 2019.)

Photo 2. Poster workshop

Photo 3. Simulation workshop

Furthermore, the students were divided into four groups with a master student as the group leader. The lectures and group workshops strongly helped the students to understand the importance of medication safety as part of patient’s safety. It also helped the students to understand the role of nurses in medication safety and as a member of interprofessional team, their responsibilities in administering safe medication and understanding the importance of patient participation in medication safety.

The themes guided our workshops in identifying the challenges encountered and different methods to prevent medication errors. The active participation of each group members was a big factor to increase the interest of gaining more knowledge because it widens the perspective of ideas and discussions being shared of each theme. It also helped us gain more confidence, build stronger relationship within our team and made new friends from different countries.

Experiences during the week

Aside from learning different professional and academic practices of medication safety from different Nordic and Baltic countries, the teachers and students also shared information about nursing education, cultures, languages and some important different traditions from each country.

Photo 4. Scenery inside Ålesund

Photo 5. Scenery from the mountain.

Photo 6. Lapland UAS´s participants

We were also given time to socialize with different students and enjoy the beautiful surrounding and nature in Ålesund, Norway (Photos 4. and 5.). Experiencing and learning all of these at the same time in a week, made this intensive course memorable, gave us more knowledge, confidence and competence in medication safety.

Photo 7. Free time

Photo 8. Enjoying in the nature

The photos 7 and 8 tell about the time for enjoying with the students in the nature. Afterwards there was meeting in the evening. During the week we were collected all together for the group photo (Photo 9).

Photo 9. Group photo of the participants.

References:

Hansen-Lunde & Skogster 2019, Medication safety and Nursing, Lecture and workshop on 5th of March. Ålesund, Norway. Ålesund, Norway.

Hrönn-Svavarsdottir & Olsen 2019, Preparation for poster presentations, students` workshop on the 6th and 7th of March.

Lyckegaard- Sørensen 2019, Safety culture. Organization and leadership, Lecture, workshops and presentation/summary on 5th of March. Ålesund, Norway.

Mikkola & Westergren 2019, Theme 5: Interprofessional collaboration, Lecture, workshops and presentation/summary on 6th of March. Ålesund, Norway.

Suikkanen & Sainio 2019, Patients perspective, Lecture, workshops and presentation /summary on 6th of March. Ålesund, Norway.

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), 2019. Nurses´ confidence in Medication Safety. Study Guide in 3.-8.3. Medico Nordplus Intensive Week
Ålesund, Norway.