Med error for missing an incorrect chart check

Specialties Geriatric

Published

The floor that I'm on, the night shift nurse does chart checks for my hall and three additional halls that I do not work on. This is a loooot of checks and takes me hours to do. I try to be very thorough! But the other day, an order was written for a patient on another hall to d/c a medication used for constipation... it began with a K. I personally had never heard of it before. But the order stated "D/C K...." just the name of the medication, no dosage. I didn't see this K medication on the orders, so I checked off that it was indeed D/C'd. Also, the second shift nurse had signed that she D/C'd it, Well I got a write up today for a medication error, turns out in the chart, it was written as "sps" then the dosage after. So I missed it. Simple mistake, but I can't help but feel annoyed that I was written up for this. Is this really considered a med error?

Ps... sorry if I made this difficult to understand

Specializes in Hospice.

Sorry, but I think it is for both you and the nurse who failed to d/c the med on the mar, as well as anyone who subsequently gave the d/c med.

The whole point of chart checks is to pick up missed or incorrectly transcribed orders. That didn't happen this time ... hence the error.

Yes, med error for you and the nurse taking off the order. if you don't know what a particular med is, then look it up.

The nurses following made the error, but they wouldn't have know the med was dc'd unless they got it in report.

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