Evaluation of Medication Administration Timing—Are We Meeting Our Goals?

Background: Per the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 482.23(c) regarding medication administration, hospital policies and procedures must identify time-critical scheduled medications which must be administered within 30 minutes either before or after the scheduled dosing time, for a total administration window of 1 hour. Objective: The general objective of this analysis was to determine whether there was a difference in meeting medication administration goals when comparing time-critical to non-time-critical scheduled medication administration in both intensive care units (ICUs) and general medical floors at a large, academic medical center. Methods: Data were collected in 6 inpatient nursing units (3 general medical units and 3 ICUs) during the month of June 2017. Electronic medical record charge data for medications were used to evaluate timeliness of medication administration. Results: In total, 69,794 medication administrations were evaluated. Of 389 administrations of time-critical scheduled medications, 268 (69%) were administered on time. Of 69,405 administrations of non-time-critical scheduled medications, 58,099 (84%) were administered on time ( P < 0.001). ICUs had a higher percentage of on-time administrations than general medical units (89% vs 77%, P < 0.001), and nurses had a higher percentage of on-time administrations than respiratory therapists (84% vs 63%, P < 0.001). Conclusions: Non-time-critical scheduled medications were more commonly administered on time compared with time-critical scheduled medications. Staff education and optimizations to the electronic health record (EHR) are interventions that may improve administration of time-critical scheduled medications.