“Medication errors cause at least one death every day and injure approximately 1.3 million people annually in the United States of America alone. While low- and middle-income countries are estimated to have similar rates of medication-related adverse events to high-income countries, the impact is about twice as much in terms of the number of years of healthy life lost.”
[Source: WHO]
The National Drug Dosage Calculation Competition for Nurses is currently the only educational/academic social initiative in Nigeria dedicated to sensitizing Nigeria’s nursing and healthcare community about the importance of safe drug/medication administration.
The initiative, started in 2019 by Ogunlabi David, a Critical Care Nurse based in the United Kingdom, is an innovative move that tackles a global issue facing healthcare from a unique angle.
WHO launched a global initiative in 2017 to reduce severe, avoidable medication-associated harm in all countries by 50% over the next five years.
We are already in the seventh year and have yet to beat that mark.
Brilliant initiatives like the National Drug Dosage Calculation Competition are rightly positioned to cause significant changes in this vital aspect of patient safety, primarily because the targets here are nurses, who inarguably are the most responsible clinicians in the chain of medication administration [prescription, transcription, dispensation, and administration].
“Research has shown that nurses are responsible for intercepting between 50% and 80% of potential medication errors before they reach the patient in the prescription, transcription, and dispensing stages of the process.”
As part of his desire to improve patient safety, Ogunlabi David also published a handbook on medication administration for nurses and healthcare professionals.
Many have testified that this handbook, The Nurse, The Maths & The Medication: A Handbook On Drug Dosage Calculation, is a must-have tool for clinicians who regularly interact with high-alert and lethal medications/drugs, especially in advanced and specialized clinical environments like the Intensive Care Unit, High-Dependency Units, Operation Theatre, and other critical departments.
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