Errors

[Chris G]

I have to get this off my chest...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I made another stupid med error! At least this one is NOT life threatening!!! The last one I made got me FIRED! I hope this one doesn't!! Stupid stupid me!

[kimmiejs]

I have to get this off my chest...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I made another stupid med error! At least this one is NOT life threatening!!! The last one I made got me FIRED! I hope this one doesn't!! Stupid stupid me!

OK Chris... medication errors are serious business. We need to figure out why you are making medication errors and come up with a plan for preventing them in the future. Usually education is the key to solving medication errors.

Are you giving medications that you are unfamiliar with? I have Epocrates installed on my PDA that I use at work. I use it constantly.

This might sound silly but how is your vision? Are you in need of glasses or contacts? Are you having difficulty reading the order due to poor vision?

Please give a bit more information so we can help you lower your rate of medication errors. Since you took the time to post here it is obvious that you care and are concerned.

[cougarnurse]

Yes, it would help with more information....

[Ricu]

Hi Chris,

In addition to the excellent recommendations already made, I would suggest that you have another nurse check the meds you're planning to give. This is especially important for things that are not routine. We should all do the "5R check system" but more than that, it means the dose calculations you had to make like how many ml. of a 10% solution you need to draw up to get 12 mg. do you have the correct number of tablets for the total dose, or the infusion pump settings or the amount of drug you plan to inject into an IV bag to make the correct concentration. No decent nurse would think less of you for checking. Good luck,

R

[Aaron C.]

I have ADD and when I was a student I'd get really busy and would have so many things going on at once it was difficult for me to keep track.

We were about to discharge this patient (in a couple of hours) but they needed one more round of antibiotics and my clinicals were over for the day in about 20 mins.

I had to mix it with the fluid and run it in and I forgot to bust the powder out and mix it and they just got the fluids and I rememberd and was like, "oh $#!+". I told my instructor and went back in and told the patient what I'd done (hadn't done) and they were PISSED! I had to stay about an hour after taking care of the mess I'd made.

Last week on Friday I have about 100 flu shots. I stuck one lady with an empty needle. I was so busy I was getting anxious and forgot to draw up the vaccine. I had to restick her and thankfully she was a good sport.

My only advice is if it's a case of being busy and not paying good enough attention to step back and take a couple of minutes to relax. There's no need to hurry because usually when you get in a hurry you make mistakes that will take longer to correct than the amount of time they would have saved you.