Reducing Interruptions to Improve Medication Safety

In the fast-paced environment of a cardiac and thoracic surgery telemetry unit, nurses are inter-rupted hundreds of times per day. These interruptions can have a detrimental effect on patientsafety during medication administration. This article describes a bundle of safety interventionsthat reduced the average number of interruptions during medication administration by 2.11 in-terruptions per encounter and decreased reported medication errors by a total of 28 incidentsover a 3-month period.