How many med errors are acceptable for a new grad RN at a teaching hospital?

Nurses New Nurse

Published

  • Specializes in Telemetry, correctional.

How many med errors are acceptable for a new grad RN at a teaching hospital before considering termination?

flyersfan88

449 Posts

Specializes in Trauma, Orthopedics.

Want to elaborate? Why are these errors being made? What kinds of errors are they? Are patients being harmed? What is going on?

joanna73, BSN, RN

4,767 Posts

Specializes in geriatrics.

Medication errors happen to all of us, but the expectation is that you will learn from the error and not repeat it. If you've made a second medication error within a short period of time, most colleagues or managers would be concerned.

At my facility, a learning plan is usually provided for repeated practice issues, in addition to verbal and written warnings.

Sun0408, ASN, RN

1,761 Posts

Specializes in Trauma Surgical ICU.

How many have you had and the reason behind them??

Specializes in NICU, PICU, educator.

Depends on what they were and how close they are. If you made a serious one, was counseled on it and had another one similar or did not heed the counseling then yes, you could be on the chopping block. And it doesn't matter what kind of hospital teaching or not.

Med errors

RN403, BSN, RN

1 Article; 1,068 Posts

The real question should be: What can one do to prevent further med errors?

Repeated medication errors, especially of the same kind, indicate one is not learning from their mistakes or that one is not taking measures to prevent making the same mistake over and over again.

Jules A, MSN

8,864 Posts

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

I would also wonder that for every error noted how many happened that weren't picked up on? Even with the scanning options things can go wrong.

roser13, ASN, RN

6,504 Posts

Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.
How many med errors are acceptable for a new grad RN at a teaching hospital before considering termination?

None. As in, a medication error is never "acceptable." It is a problem to be reviewed, remedied, and with re-education taking place.

As to how many you can commit before termination: 100% facility/management/P&P specific. Therefore, none of us can answer that question.

RNsRWe, ASN, RN

3 Articles; 10,428 Posts

"teaching hospital" refers to a hospital that has a medical student/residency teaching program. Nurses are hired without any "teaching" in mind, you are expected to do your job correctly from the get-go.

On October 7th, you posted about asking for a recommendation from your unit manager for another job. Is this related.....or is this a guessing game kind of question?

Jules A, MSN

8,864 Posts

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
"teaching hospital" refers to a hospital that has a medical student/residency teaching program. Nurses are hired without any "teaching" in mind, you are expected to do your job correctly from the get-go.

Excellent point and I hope people don't think that just because a facility is called a teaching hospital it means errors are embraced. Its a fact of life that errors happen but hopefully we can learn from our mistakes as well as the mistakes of others who went before us.

Specializes in Hospital medicine; NP precepting; staff education.

Medication errors are never acceptable, meaning, sure, no big deal, it's only a senna... but they are expected. We are human [or time lord ;) ] and mistakes will be made. As many PPs have stated, what is acceptable and expected as well is to use those as opportunities to learn from the mistake and move on.

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