Teaching medication administration through innovative simulation

Nurse educators are constantly seeking innovative ways to better prepare nursing students for clinical practice in the health care environment. One approach implemented by an associate degree program of nursing in southern Ohio is an automated medication dispensing system in the skills laboratory setting to evaluate first-year students' competency in administering medications. This self-report convenience survey evaluated the perceptions of 51 first semester nursing students following the implementation of a medication dispensing system in the skills laboratory prior to competency evaluation for medication administration. The authors' findings supported the use of the Demo Dose medDISPENSE automated medication dispensing system as a valuable teaching strategy because it reinforces the students' knowledge base of the six rights of medication administration and their confidence level. In addition, the potential for preventing medication errors by nursing students was discovered.