I worked day shift and I was very busy which is a stupid excuse but I forgot to take my patient's blood sugar before lunch. I did take it but it was after lunch. Well famly complained about it and DON wrote me up for neglegence. I was wondering if they can use this to report my name to BON since she wrote it as neglegence.

I guess they could but it is highly unlikely. Reports to the BON are usually big mistakes and other stuff like that For the most part it will go into your personel file.

I wouldn't worry too much. There was no harm in the oversight. You're not the first, won't be the last to miss a scheduled accucheck.

You correct it by monitoring blood sugars more closely until the next meal/dose.

Board of Nursing would laugh at a complaint of this nature. It's not willful negligence it was a simple oversight. One you caught and made everyone aware of...

Take a deep breath. Relax, go get 'em next time.

Nah - this happens more often than not. Honestly, if the family would not have complained, I bet it would have been overlooked. CBGs are sometimes the lower priority, unfortunately, around feeding time at the zoo...

ETA: This in NO WAY means you should make this a norm. CBGs are there for a very IMPORTANT and potentially life saving reason... so ALWAYS do them... BUT, in the grand scheme of things, missing one (but catching it post-prandal) is not that bad...

Does anyone else have an issue with the mistake being called "negligence" in the write up? Doesn't that have a very specific meaning when used in healthcare?

Does anyone else have an issue with the mistake being called "negligence" in the write up? Doesn't that have a very specific meaning when used in healthcare?

HUGE problem! You don't have to be a lawyer to know the difference between a careless error and negligent error. (This was the former... no harm!)

To define negligence you have to have cause and effect. The cause here is that the patient was diabetic, the effect was that no harm was done no one died and the patient was ok.

I think "regular" people, meaning non medical, expect nurses to know everything and when you as the nurse don't deliver he/she gets mad and directs the anger toward you the nurse. Do the best you can and walk away. Isn't it likely the individual forgot to take their BS at home periodically?

There was nothing negligent about that. It was an oversight, an honest mistake. No one was hurt, you weren't intentionally hurting anyone.

It's cr@p like that that makes people not want to be nurses anymore.

Without knowing all the details and IF this was not a common "mistake" or oversight.......I agree negligence seems a little harsh of a term to use. Anyone can lodge a complaint against your license. Whether or not the board takes action is another......If the board gets a random complaint that a nurse forgot a CBS and there are no other pending issues then odds are the board will take no action. If however, there have been issues in the past or pending issues the board may take action.

One forgotten CBS......negligence is a little harsh.

I agree with the above posters.

Not sure what setting this was in, but in a LTC setting you could have 10 or more with 25-26 pts. Say it is the 3-11 shift and you have doc orders, two admissions and a fall that required alot of attention and xyx etc. Okay..you finally get back to the dinner med pass, but the trays are getting passed and you try to ask the CNAs to hold the diabetics dinners so you can get a quick finger stick. Remember that you have 10 of them to do?

So...if you miss a stick or that person starts to eat....negligence or system problem or ?????

BTDT.

I'm not sure I'd even call this a "careless" mistake. Sounds like the poster was just overwhelmed with issues at the moment and the CBG got overlooked. It's happened to me, usually when meal trays are earlier than I expected, though I do my best to make sure it doesn't.