Medication administration by non-RN personnel: a safe and cost-effective response to the RN shortage.

The results of this study strongly suggest that medication administration in the acute care community hospital setting can be safely and cost-effectively handled by non-RN personnel. In adopting such a strategy, an acute care institution can expect better utilization of existing RN resources and improved overall institutional quality, thus increasing the chances of long-term survival in the marketplace. In addition, the acute care institution can save money by avoiding unrestrained spending related to scarce RN resources (e.g., recruitment costs, agency use costs, and orientation costs due to high attrition). With society expecting more and higher quality services, hospital administrators may have an opportunity to offer the health care customer safer and less expensive medication administration services.