Med Errors

Nurses Medications

Published

For our collective benefit, list some of the med errors you've seen committed or caught before they were committed.

The only rules are:

1. No blaming.

2. No naming names.

3. State what the error was.

Examples:

1. Mag and KCl hanging without a pump. ---Both need to be administered on a pump.

2. Regular insulin, pulled up in mg's, not units ---Self-explanatory.

3. Digoxin 0.125 mg po qd ----Given with an apical HR of 42.

4. Order for Vistaril IV ---Never give Vistaril IV.

5. Lopressor 25 mg po bid, 1 tab ----Pt. got 50 mg. because this med only comes in 50 mg tabs and should've read "1/2 tab."

6. PRBCs hung over the 4 hour limit. PRBCs piggybacked into ABTs. ---PRBC total hang time may not exceed 4 hours. This might include time taken from the blood bank in some facilities. ---Never piggyback anything into PRBCs.

7. PRBCs not hung for over 24h with a Hgb of 6.8.

8. "Demerol 100 mg. IVP q2h prn" --Classic case of "too much, too soon."

9. "Percocet 1-2 tabs po q4h prn, Darvocet N-100 1-2 tabs po q4h prn, Tylenol ES gr. X q4-6 h prn" ---Tylenol can potentially exceed 4 gm/day max.

10. Dilantin piggybacked into D5. ---NS yes, D5 no.

Insulin freaks me out! I had a potentially bad situation to arise from the administration of the wrong type of insulin (Humalog instead of Lantus). Luckily this patient's blood glucose never dropped below 70, but it was enough for me to learn my lesson! Most facilities require that a 2nd nurse validate the insulin dose, but I work in LTC and it is not required. Pay attention!!!

What happens to these nurses with med errors? I am really stressed reading all of the mistakes. I know that we are only human and are always rushed and behind.

Specializes in ICU, telemetry, LTAC.

Hmm. I was so proud of myself, going 8 months into my career without an IV drug error. My near miss brought me down off my high horse! Patient was a little old guy, complicated history but basically couldn't keep his blood pressure up, had some ectopy but otherwise stable. Dobutamine drip going at 5 ml/hour. (I think. It's been a month.) I don't remember what mcg's that translates into.

ANYhow, he proved to be a challenge, as he ripped out the INT that the drip ran through and managed to smear blood on nearly every surface in the room immediately after. I mean walls, dry erase board, bed rails, floor, most of a chair, and the little spaces in between the telemetry wires. Ick. Took forever to get that mess cleaned up. It amounted to being in his room most of the night. No problem.

So his IV goes off. This is where I'd like to point out that when you use NS as the thing that dobutamine is piggybacked into, it's nice to have a bag of NS that isn't the exact same size as the dobutamine, i.e. 250ml. I ran in, turned the beeping thing on hold, looked up, and I thought the dobutamine was empty. Ran back out, called pharmacy, who sent me a bag. Neither of us thought, hmm, at 5 ml/hr and started less than 12 hours ago, it shouldn't be out of volume...

I took the dopamine bag in the room, took down the empty bag. Opened dobutamine, unspiked empty bag, and stood there, spike in hand, ready to quadruple-dose my patient. (NS runs at whatever rate will make the two equal 20 ml/hour. In this case it would be about 15ml/hour.) My brain went blank. I had the gut feeling that something was wrong. So I stood there, slack-jawed, waiting on inspiration to strike. Then followed the line from my spike to the IV pump. Pump reads 15 ml/hour. Hm. It occurred to me that I've never seen dobutamine run that fast. Then I looked at the other pump, followed the line from it up to... the bag of dobutamine that was already hanging.

So, at that point my heart's pounding, and the patient sat up suddenly, I dropped the dobutamine on the bed, spilling most of it. Respiked the empty bag of normal saline and went to go get another; fixed the NS without making a med error and got the patient a dry blanket. Had to call pharmacy and explain what I did, so they wouldn't charge patient for an extra bag of dobutamine.

But oh my gosh, was my heart pounding. It felt so bad, to be in such a hurry to just get in there and hang a bag, only to realize what would have happened to this fella if I had hung it. I guess it's a good thing that the whole experience happened. It showed me how lax I have been getting, and caused some of my original new-nurse paranoia and OCD to return with regard to IV meds.

Specializes in Utilization Management.
What happens to these nurses with med errors? I am really stressed reading all of the mistakes. I know that we are only human and are always rushed and behind.

It depends on where you work, what kind of error, how quickly it was caught and how honest you were to set things straight.

In my facility, errors are reported to Risk Management, our Charge Nurse and Manager, the patient, the doctor, and sometimes the Pharmacy.

So suppose Suzy Q makes an error and I follow her. I'm doing chart checks, when suddenly I realize that Pt was supposed to be on Integrilin pending a cardiac cath in the morning. However, the order was missed.

Suzy Q doesn't even know that the order was missed. She might get called in to see the Manager and asked to explain. If she says, "Yes, I saw the order but I didn't hang it, because I figured it could wait a couple of hours for the next shift," Suzy is probably in a whole world of trouble. If she says, "No, I never saw that order," or if she has a good explanation and she is usually a very conscientious nurse and the apology seems sincere, she might not get a write-up.

If Suzy is the unit slacker, this would be seen by some Managers as an opportunity to get rid of her by "suggesting" that she turn in her resignation.

Specializes in OR, ER.

i've seen a lot of wrong iv bags hanging..i just talked to the nurse involved..no harm done to the patients.

newly grad took verbal order from resident..she gave oxytocin/pitocin iv push..multigravida..pt was transferred to lr immediately and was monitored by the resident herself the whole night(resident was so furious!)-nothing happened to the pt/baby...nurse got fired.

TPN with insulin in it. Insulin drip running also.

ICU-BG's kept rising. I came on at 3PM. MD wrote orders to increase amount of drip and also the amount of insulin in TPN.

The pt. had a trach with mist collar. Puddle of fluid on floor thought all day to be from trach mist.

I always check where my lines are going and that they are marked.

Insulin gtt that they had been increasing all day for increased BGs was unhooked and was dripping on floor and not into pt..........

Specializes in OBS, OR, ER.

Is it standard to use the quotations around the u "U" ?

Specializes in Pediatrics.

So... another med error for me :( I was so proud it was several several months since I'd made one at all. Gave 2mg of morphine when 1mg was ordered, to an 8month old with broken femur not yet set... I did calculate that the dose was safe for this pt's weight. The moral of this story, always always ALWAYS double check that order or MAR after it's drawn up before giving it to the patient... I think I am somewhat dyslexic because I clearly read it as 2mg, when I looked at it later, it was quite clearly 1mg and no mistaking it. The babe was fine, hadn't had any pain meds yet and it did help him, and of course he was on a pulse ox anyway w/that med, but I'm still upset. I'm afraid this may be the one that gets me fired.

i've seen a lot of wrong iv bags hanging..i just talked to the nurse involved..no harm done to the patients.

newly grad took verbal order from resident..she gave oxytocin/pitocin iv push..multigravida..pt was transferred to lr immediately and was monitored by the resident herself the whole night(resident was so furious!)-nothing happened to the pt/baby...nurse got fired.

what was the verbal order supposed to be for?

Specializes in OR, ER.
What was the verbal order supposed to be for?

I don't know what was the real order. The resident assumed that she was understood by the nurse and didn't know she's new.

Specializes in Pediatrics.
I don't know what was the real order. The resident assumed that she was understood by the nurse and didn't know she's new.

This is a good example of why we all have the "read back" policy for phone orders don't you think? A very good reminder.

I thought of another one- pt w/multiple medical issues, becoming steadily fussier and retching, etc; multiple calls to MD on night shift- someone asked about "her ativan" b/c they'd had her on a previous admit, I said she's not on any ativan, looked up previous hospitalization and pt had been on some scheduled dose of ativan- asked mom if pt receives scheduled ativan at home, mom says "yes- has she not been getting it here?? she's had that ever since she was brought home from nicu!" and she showed me her list of home meds; that one somehow got missed by the admitting MD on the "home med" sheet which is understandable, she is on many meds... called the MD and got the correct order and no more retching/irritability issues.

Lesson from that, the importance of double checking home medication sheets (by MD and RN).

Specializes in orthopaedics.
this error wasn't made by me, but it occurred when i was working. we had a patient who got theragesic cream (basically a very strong icyhot) on her shoulders and under her shoulder blades before and after therapy. she also got buttpaste after every diaper change to the rectum and perineum. the tubes were very similar, and well... i heard the scream all the way down to my nurse station. not a fun situation!

omg!!! :bluecry1: yeoooow!

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