Reporting med errors... - page 3

If it meant possibly losing my job and there was nothing to be done about it (antidote, for example), I'd probably keep my mouth shut... I don't know, though. I have reported the errors that I've made though never in fear for my job.

That's the problem with punitive attitudes... they don't prevent mistakes, they just prevent honest reporting of same.

I am not a RN yet, but I am a med tech so I do give medications.
There was a time I gave the wrong person the wrong medication. I checked the wrist band & everything (I work in a jail) and the name was correct. As it turned out, they had the same name, and I did not check birth date. I did not realize the mistake until I made it to the person who was supposed to get the medication, and noticed it was missing. The mix up was only with norvasc, but luckily the person I gave it to was already a little hypertensive and it brought his BP down to a normal level lol, still should not have happened though.
To answer your question, yes I report any mistake that I make, and I have was written up for the mistake I mentioned above. If the person should have an adverse reaction to the medication, it helps to know what it was, what time etc. If it means losing my job, then so be it. Rather have that, than seriously injure someone else because I was too scared to report something

i don't see one response so far that says, "if you are giving a med for the first time, read the fool label." everyone's saying, "oh, poor baby, they are being so mean, nobody's perfect, don't beat yourself up, blah blah blah." i am saying, "it's your own fault because you gave a non-emergent medication you weren't familiar with without looking it up."

now, if there's a system failure here, like the pharmacy sent it to you in a syringe that didn't have all the package labeling on it, your self-report will help them fix that. if maybe there's a better way to treat than giving glucagon for whatever you gave it for, a self-report might help with that too. you probably don't deserve to be fired for this if it's really a first incident. but by heaven you sure as heck do deserve some sort of serious reprimand because you did, in fact, break one of the most important rules you learned your first week in school... right route. you're merely lucky (as is your patient) that it wasn't more serious.

yes, i have made errors in my life, and reporte them. as my sweet old grandmother used to say,"some of us are put on this earth to be examples to others." that's risk management. one way or another.

I would not report it. I see way more crap going on on my unit and nothing is being done about it. I had to report a nurse who made a narcotic error and told me she would take care of it on Monday. This type of practice is not allowed. I also had to report a nurse who was found giving 10pm meds at 6pm. On top of that this nurse does little to no nursing notes, does not complete any of the protocol sheets on teh unit and he is still there. The institution I work at has gone down. So no, I would not report it. As a friend of mine says 'when you continue to show no repercussions to people who do wrong, those who do right will no longer do right.'

I had a coworker who gave a bolus of heparin (500 mL) rather than a bolus of hespan...to a patient in the ICU who was on her way to surgery. Luckily the anesthesiologist noticed and didn't perform the surgery as she would have bled out immediately. This nurse didn't get fired.

Moved to Nursing and Patient Medications for more response.