Frontline nursing staff’s perceptions of intravenous medication administration: the first step toward safer infusion processes—a qualitative study

Objectives Intravenous medication errors continue to significantly impact patient safety and outcomes. This study sought to clarify the complexity and risks of the intravenous administration process.Design A qualitative focus group interview study.Setting Focused interviews were conducted using process mapping with frontline nurses responsible for medication administration in September 2020.Participants Front line experiened nurses from a Japanese tertiary teaching hospital.Primary and secondary outcome measures The primary outcome measure was to identify the mental models frontline nurses used during intravenous medication administration, which influence their interactions with patients, and secondarily, to examine the medication process gaps between the mental models nurses perceive and the actual defined medication administration process.Results We found gaps between the perceived clinical administration process and the real process challenges with an emphasis on the importance of verifying to see if the drug was ordered for the patient immediately before its administration.Conclusions This novel and applied improvement approach can help nurses and managers better understand the process vulnerability of the infusion process and develop a deeper understanding of the administration steps useful for reliably improving the safety of intravenous medications.