Ashley Care Home nursing encompasses autonomous and collaborative care of individuals of all ages, families, groups and communities, sick or well and in all settings. Nursing includes the promotion of health, prevention of illness, and the care of ill, disabled and final days of their journey. Advocacy, promotion of a safe environment, research, participation in shaping health policy and in patient and health systems management, and education are also key nursing roles. Nursing is the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations.

With the growing reliance on medication therapy as the primary intervention for most illnesses, patients receiving medication interventions are exposed to potential harm as well as benefits. Benefits are effective management of the illness/disease, slowed progression of the disease, and improved patient outcomes with few if any errors. Harm from medications can arise from unintended consequences as well as medication error (wrong medication, wrong time, wrong dose, etc.).

With inadequate nursing education about patient safety and quality, excessive workloads, staffing inadequacies, fatigue, illegible provider handwriting, flawed dispensing systems, and problems with the labeling of drugs, nurses are continually challenged to ensure that their patients receive the right medication at the right time. The purpose of this chapter is to review the research regarding medication safety in relation to nursing care. We will show that while we have an adequate and consistent knowledge base of medication error reporting and distribution across phases of the medication process, the knowledge base to inform interventions is very weak.