Preciseness Eliminates Error

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Often in the research field people work in a time crunch with many tasks to do and little time to do them. This creates a stressful work environment as employees spend all day rushing from place to place. To make things easier, many people choose to find shortcuts for the more time-consuming assignments. While this may work in helping to complete tasks quicker, this is not always the most effective strategy to use as it leaves room for human error. It is important to complete tasks with intention and preciseness to eliminate the number of occurrences involving human error because this will ensure the safety of patients in healthcare and accurate data in a research study.

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Since Spring 2024, I have had the opportunity to work as a research assistant in the body composition lab along with two other research assistants and two mentors. Our research study which is called the “Comparison of fitness measures and physical activity levels in NJCAA female athletes between their competitive season and their off-season” involves thirteen NJCAA female volleyball and soccer athletes attending the University of South Carolina Lancaster recruited during their athletic season. There are three major phases of our study including pre-season, on season, and off season where we collect the body composition measurements and data of the athletes. In the first phase, we take measurements of the athletes’ height, weight, wrist/waist circumferences, as well as their body and fat free mass. During phase two and three of our study, we take these same measurements but also give the athletes an accelerometer, which is a device they wear around their waist that tracks how much time they spend in light, moderate, vigorous, and very vigorous exercise. They wear these devices for a week excluding times when they are sleeping, showering, or swimming and bring back a sheet of paper containing how many hours each day they wore and/or forgot to wear the device. Once we have data from all the participants, we then must validate it. My research question specifically focuses on the associations among moderate to vigorous physical activity, handgrip strength, and fat free mass index within the athletes. 

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In order to validate data, we go through the ACTi Graph software and compare everything with the athlete’s weekly logs. After confirming that the data matches the athlete’s account from their week, we scour through the mass amount of data from the ACTi life software and rewrite the specific variables we are looking for on a paper log. Validating the accelerometer data helps to ensure that it is acceptable for use and analysis. While this step of the data collection process is very important it is also very tedious and requires combing through and rewriting hundreds of numbers from one big excel sheet. In figure 1 and figure 1.5 you can see examples of de-identified data from this project shared with permission. 

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One day I went to validate data from the excel sheet and noticed something seemed off. The data from an accelerometer had stated that an athlete had spent a total of 24 hours in moderate to vigorous physical activity. This was obviously alarming because not only is it nearly impossible for a person to spend that much time involved in exercise, but we also advise the athletes to take off the devices when sleeping, showering, or swimming so it was likely the data was inaccurate. When comparing the data with the athlete’s weekly log, I found that there was no statement of the accelerometer being worn for 24 hours. After spending a few more minutes confirming that something was off, I called in my mentor to take a closer look. She was able to confirm my suspicions of a data discrepancy. We reuploaded the accelerometer data where we found the correct data and were able to appropriately fix things. While looking further at our data I also found that there was incorrect data input for different research participants. I once again confirmed the data discrepancy with my mentor, and we made the appropriate adjustments. This really stood out to me because the research assistant who had previously inputted the data was a very intelligent woman who had been working in the lab for a year when this happened and had just simply made a mistake. This proves that no matter how smart a person is or how long someone has been employed at a job, as humans we are bound to make mistakes. In being precise and paying close attention to the data I was able to catch mistakes and correct them in a timely manner. My research question is heavily involved in data from moderate to vigorous physical activity so if I would not have discovered that data discrepancy it may have significantly impacted the results from our study.

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I am a sophomore at USCL majoring in Nursing and last year I took a class called Nursing Informatics (Nursing 208). In this class we learned the proper ways to use technology to your advantage while working as a nurse to keep all patient information readily accessible for every healthcare provider involved in the patient’s care. Technology can also help catch mistakes made by humans that we may not identify. This is important while working as a healthcare professional because even making small mistakes could be detrimental to the livelihood of a patient. While we can’t entirely avoid mistakes from happening, learning not to mindlessly complete tasks and instead do everything with intention can help prevent errors from occurring as often. One of the biggest concepts we learned in Nursing Informatics was the six rights of medication administration. In figure 2, you can see an example of a hypothetical situation regarding a nurse that administered medication to a patient without following the protocol for the six rights of medication administration. Here I explained where specifically the nurse went wrong, what affect her error had on the patient, and what she could have done to prevent this from happening. Each patient in the hospital is given a wristband with a scan code attached that can be used by healthcare professionals to correctly identify a patient before providing care. The medication bottles used in hospitals also display a scan code so nurses can scan the patient’s wristband and medication to confirm that the correct meds are being given to the correct patient. Using this technology to verify information when administering medication will alert the nurse if she is making an error during med passes. When administering medication, it is important that a nurse follows six main steps: right patient, right medication, right dose, right time, right route, and right documentation. Unfortunately, some nurses do not follow these steps and may find an easier short cut when giving meds as the extra work can be too time-consuming. This may not always be an issue but in doing so the nurse risks making a mistake and accidentally administering the incorrect medication or dosage to a patient, putting their life in danger.

 

Not only is being precise and completing tasks with intention vital in my research study, but it is also an important skill to have while pursuing a career in nursing. In both situations, trying to find workarounds for tedious activities may seem like a good idea in the moment but could be very detrimental in the end. Choosing not to validate a patient’s identity before administering meds can lead to serious consequences for the patient and the nurse. Mindlessly validating data in a research study can lead to skewed results and incorrect information. This is why it is so important even for seasoned nurses and researchers to avoid doing tasks mindlessly. It is always better to take more time and complete things at a slower pace than to rush through something just to get it done. Human error is bound to happen whether we want it to or not but the best way to prevent mistakes is to complete tasks carefully and with intention.