1 Interruptions in medication administration –

The nature of today’s healthcare practice makes interruptions, distractions and multi-tasking commonplace, even during complex and high risk tasks.[1,2,3] Interruptions are often cited as a problem in medication safety, particularly in relation to nurses administering medication.[1,4] Previous studies [5,6] suggest an association between interruptions and medication administration errors. While a direct causal relationship remains to be proven, reducing interruptions during medication administration to decrease multi-tasking and cognitive load represents a generally accepted goal.[1,4]