Unit Outline

Safety and Quality in Medication Management will allow you to focus on medication safety. You will examine pharmacotherapeutic and pharmaceutical principles and the Registered Nurse Practice Standards (2016) to consider safety and clinical suitability of medication whilst ensuring your practice meets the legal, professional and ethical standards expected of you. You will apply the clinical reasoning cycle and national evidence-based resources to safely administer medications, with a focus on non-oral medication administration. Principles and socio-political and health economic implications of medication use for patients, across the lifespan, and from a range of cultural perspectives will be considered.

Intended Learning Outcomes

As per the Assessment and Results Policy 1.3, your results will reflect your achievement against specified learning outcomes.

On completion of this unit, you will be able to:


1	Apply pharmacotherapeutic and pharmaceutical principles to the administration of medications across a life span.
2	Apply relevant legal and ethical principles, professional standards and Quality Use of Medicines principles to medication management practices.
3	Perform medication calculations.
4	Administer medications safely in simulated scenarios.

Requisites


REQUISITE TYPE	REQUISITES
Pre-requisite	NUR135 Nursing Practice 1
Anti-requisite (mutual excl)	NUR241

Alterations as a result of student feedback

This is the first delivery of this unit, and the teaching team will greatly appreciate your feedback both informally during the delivery of the unit in 2025, and formally through the University of Tasmania’s Unit Survey following your completion of the unit.

How will I be Assessed?

For more detailed assessment information please see MyLO.

Assessment schedule


ASSESSMENT TASK #	ASSESSMENT TASK NAME	DATE DUE	WEIGHT	LINKS TO INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES
Assessment Task 1:	Medications Calculations and Pharmacotherapeutic Test	Week 4	30 %	LO1, LO3
Assessment Task 2:	Medication chart review	Week 7	30 %	LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4
Assessment Task 3:	Objective Structured Clinical Examination - Practical Medication Administration	Week 9	40 %	LO1, LO2, LO4

Assessment details

Assessment Task 1: Medications Calculations and Pharmacotherapeutic Test

Task Description:

You will undertake a test which will evaluate your ability to accurately perform medication calculations and answer questions regarding pharmaceutical science and pharmacotherapeutics as it pertains to the clinical cases presented.

Task Length:

45 minutes

Due Date:

Week 4

Weight:

30 %

CRITERION #

CRITERION

MEASURES INTENDED

LEARNING OUTCOME(S)


1	Calculate medication dosages and concentrations.	LO3
2	Apply pharmacotherapeutic and pharmaceutical principles to the clinical scenarios.	LO1

Assessment Task 2: Medication chart review

Task Description:

In class, under test conditions, you will undertake a review of patient medication charts and answer questions about the given patient scenario(s).

Task Length:

45 minutes

Due Date:

Week 7

Weight:

30 %

CRITERION #

CRITERION

MEASURES INTENDED

LEARNING OUTCOME(S)


1	Apply pharmaceutical knowledge to clinical scenarios.	LO1
2	Calculate medication dosages for the patient.	LO3
3	Apply clinical reasoning, legal, ethical and professional standards to the clinical scenarios.	LO2
4	Determine how to administer the medications safely to the patient(s).	LO4

Assessment Task 3: Objective Structured Clinical Examination - Practical Medication Administration

Task Description:

During the assessment session, you will be required to perform one individual skill and undertake a conversation related to the safe administration of medications.

This task is a HURDLE task which you must pass in order to pass the unit.

Task Length:

20 minutes

Due Date:

Week 9

Weight:

40 %

CRITERION #

CRITERION

MEASURES INTENDED

LEARNING OUTCOME(S)


1	Apply clinical reasoning to safely administer parenteral medications.	LO4
2	Apply pharmaceutical principles to safely administer medications through various routes.	LO1
3	Adhere to national standards, including communication and documentation.	LO2

How your final result is determined

To pass this unit, you need to demonstrate your attainment of each of the Intended Learning Outcomes, achieve a final unit grade of 50% or greater, and pass any hurdle tasks.

Academic progress review

The results for this unit may be included in a review of your academic progress. For information about progress reviews and what they mean for all students, see Academic Progress Review in the Student Portal.

Submission of assignments

Where practicable, assignments should be submitted to an assignment submission folder in MYLO. You must submit assignments by the due date or receive a penalty (unless an extension of time has been approved by the Unit Coordinator). Students submitting any assignment in hard copy, or because of a practicum finalisation, must attach a student cover sheet and signed declaration for the submission to be accepted for marking.

Academic integrity

Academic integrity is about acting responsibly, honestly, ethically, and collegially when using, producing, and communicating information with other students and staff members.

In written work, you must correctly reference the work of others to maintain academic integrity. To find out the referencing style for this unit, see the assessment information in the MyLO site, or contact your teaching staff. For more detail about Academic Integrity, see Important Guidelines & Support.

Requests for extensions

If you are unable to submit an assessment task by the due date, you should apply for an extension.

A request for an extension should first be discussed with your Unit Coordinator or teaching support team where possible. A request for an extension must be submitted by the assessment due date, except where you can provide evidence it was not possible to do so. Typically, an application for an extension will be supported by documentary evidence: however, where it is not possible for you to provide evidence please contact your Unit Coordinator.

The Unit Coordinator must notify you of the outcome of an extension request within 3 working days of receiving the request.

Late penalties

Assignments submitted after the deadline will receive a late penalty of 5% of the original available mark for each calendar day (or part day) that the assignment is late. Late submissions will not be accepted more than 10 calendar days after the due date, or after assignments have been returned to other students on a scheduled date, whichever occurs first. Further information on Late Penalties can be found on the Assessments and Results Procedure.

Required Resources

Required reading materials

Bauldoff, G., Gubrud, P., Carno, M-A., & Levett-Jones, T. (2020). LeMone and Burke’s medical-surgical nursing : Critical thinking for person-centred care. (4th ed.). Pearson Australia.

Berman, A., Snyder, S., Levett-Jones, T., Burton, P., & Harvey, N. (2021). Skills in clinical nursing. ( 2nd ed.) Pearson Australia.

Berman, A., Frandsen, G., Snyder, S., Levett-Jones, T., Burston, A., Dwyer, T., Hales, M., Harvey, N., Moxham, L., Langtree, T., Reid-Searl, K., Rolf, F., & Stanley, D. (2021). Kozier and Erb’s fundamentals of nursing: Concepts, process and practice (5th ed.). Pearson Australia.