GlohMed is committed to addressing critical issues in patient safety, such as medication errors. A recent study “Knowledge and Performance on Intravenous Medication Administration to Patients: A Cross-Sectional Observational Study Among Nurses of Nepal”, authored by GlohMed investigator Ms. Jaya Dhungna (PhD candidate, public health, KUSMS), emphasizes the need to improve nurses’ knowledge and practice competencies in intravenous (IV) medication administration to paediatric patients. This study evaluated the knowledge and skills of 115 nurses and found that 12.2% of the participants had adequate knowledge about IV medication administration whereas none had good level and 17.4% had a fair level of performance. Furthermore, nurse–patient ratio was not maintained in 80% of the shifts observed, which could be a factor for poor performance level of medication administration. The WHO Nursing Report 2020 as well as the facility-based studies have reported nursing staff shortage as the major contributory factor to poor medication administration practice and hence high incidence of medication error and poor patient outcome globally (World Health Organization 2020; Kruk et al. 2018; Kimeu 2015; Salmasi et al. 2015; Tubbs-Cooley et al. 2013).
