Co-worker making numerous mistakes

[lexibear99, LPN]

I work in a ALF. We have a prn LPN that has been a nurse for over 25 years although she has not always worked as a nurse. She worked for our facility when we first opened then left to go some where else and has now returned as prn but she works frequently. My questions is, since she has been back she has made numerous errors that have been witnessed by other nurses. We report them to the DON and she either laughs them off or says she will talk to her but acts like she doesn't believe this person could be making these errors. When she does talk to her she pretty much lets her know who reported the error and then it difficult working with her I know the DON is not handling this professionally but just how many errors can be made before you go above the DON? I am not talking small errors either, in 1 morning she did a accucheck on a person who is not diabetic because she got the people mixed up, brought me a syringe to verify an insulin dose and had it in a tb syringe, gave a person a ativan at 8am when they get it only at 12n and 9pm.

[Nascar nurse, ASN, RN]

Well that's some pretty scary stuff. Your DON should be taking this seriously. Couple options for you.....1. Start copying your notes to the DON. Hand deliver her the copy of your concerns (she should get the hint that someone is keeping record of these errors). 2. Are you writing medication error reports - that needs to be done. 3. Is there an administrator for your facility? If so, follow the chain of command and go to them. 4. If all else fails you should be able to call your state department that is in charge of ALF's in your state.

[lexibear99, LPN]

Thank you, up to this point everything reported to the DON has been verbal but that will change now. We are not allowed to do an incident report or a med error report on another employee, only the managers can do that!

[tokebi]

I believe any nurse who encounters a med error, a fall, or any incidents of the sort must write incident reports? Who the report could be against should not have any bearing. If you are specifically forbidden to do so against another employee -- which I think is a ridiculous rule, you can still write it without mentioning who caused the incident. I once had to do that because I noticed discrepancies in narc sign-out sheet and MAR in previous shift. I knew who the nurse was but didn't have to say that in the incident report. I just wrote exactly what I found and it led to investigation.

I personally believe that med errors should not be used as a cause for disciplinary actions against nurses, but it sounds like this nurse is downright negligent.

[Nursewithswag2010]

Yea. Those are real big errors. As the following person said I would just follow the chain of command then if that doesn't work go to the state board. I'm sure whatever state your in has it's annual survey and those errors would be picked up and costly to your company. It just seems the nurse is careless but what she is doing is dangerous as well. I can only imagine the stuff that you didn't see that she has messed up on.

[caliotter3]

Do a write up of the insulin incident and send it to the nursing board. That will get people's attention.