JCAHO: Hospital mistakes to be disclosed; Accreditation at risk if patients not told

NRSKarenRN, Thanks for your reply. We already have the patient sign after giving D/C instructions. Alot of them still do not get Rx filled and I know that because they will bring their child back the next day and say they are not any better? We also give out care notes at my ER for Rx and the patients Dx, this too meets JCAHO reqirements. My point was being it gets old when pts. really don't care about themselves, but they will try to hold it against the nurse if she messes up. I know we don't have a perfect society, but this is frusturating.

<I think my question is when a facility works nurses short or long hours is it going to be the nurse taking responsibility or the facilityIs the facilities also since this will be public use this against the nurses?>

Because of the Nurse Practice Act & the Nurse Code of Ethics & the obligations nurses have under them, you will be held responsible if you accept an assignment that you know to be unsafe or continue to work when you know you are exhausted & are not working at your optimal level, because a "reasonable & prudent" nurse would have used better judgement & not placed her pts in a hazardous situation, no matter how far up the chain of command she to go to do it. The public may be a little more sympathetic to your position of being between a rock & a hard place but your state board may not & you could have charges placed on your license, or even lose it.

<Hospitals must now tell patients and their families
when they have been hurt by a medical error<

so...does this mean that hospitals must ALSO tell patients when an error occurs that does NOT hurt the patient...???

Ex. Pitocin ordered 10 Units per liter IV fluid infused at 2 mU/min...
was mixed as 30 Units per liter, BUT was STILL infused at 2 mU/min...

Just wondering...