Funny charting error.

Published

Thursday, June 19, 2008

The hour before we meet our assigned patients in the hospital, we have to go through their charts on the computer and find out all of their important information: diagnosis, labs, progress notes, medication, etc. You know the drill.

So, the other morning I was assigned a middle-aged lady with had just had abdominal surgery. As I was looking through her admitting information from the OR, I had to look twice when I saw her weight: 799 pounds. 363 kg. BMI 128.

I called my instructor over to my computer and I was like, "Is that right? Nearly 800 pounds? That can't be right, can it? Am I reading something wrong?"

Mrs. C. looked shocked and said, "Ummm...I don't know. You would have thought they would have mentioned that to me before I assigned any of my students to this patient. Let me see that. Huh. It says 799 pounds, all right."

Now, I know the majority of Americans are overweight, obese even, but I've never ever met someone that heavy before. My instructor had never taken care of anyone like that before either. She and I looked at each other, and then we practically both ran down the hall so we could peak into my patient's room. Being that it was 6 AM, she was still sleeping soundly so she didn't hear us shove the door open a crack to pop our heads inside.

And there she was. A thin, medium built woman, who didn't even take up half of the bed. I almost burst out laughing. Yeah. There was no way on earth she was even CLOSE to weighing that much! Mrs. C. told me one of my number one goals for the morning was to get a proper weight on her and to document it in the computer. So I did.

141 sounds a lot better than 800.

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Specializes in Oncology, Hospice, Research.

Good catch! You have to wonder how many people read the wrong weight without even thinking about it. :chuckle I've seen a fair number of errors myself but my most recent one was of a WOMAN whose prostrate problems were described thoroughly. :roll It was obviously a transcription error that got two patients confused but I got a giggle reading about it.

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I love the one I ran into second semester....a MED STUDENT had charted that the patient had "hypersodiumia"....I asked my instructor was this some type of new problem that we hadnt been taught about? Of course the patient had "hypernatremia"....LOL!

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This reminds me of when someone charted drainage that had pus in it as ***** =)

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Specializes in Emergency.
I love the one I ran into second semester....a MED STUDENT had charted that the patient had "hypersodiumia"....I asked my instructor was this some type of new problem that we hadnt been taught about? Of course the patient had "hypernatremia"....LOL!

LOL ohhhh my....haha

:uhoh21::lol2:

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A friend of mine who is an RN didn't make a charting error, but what happened was kinda funny nonetheless. She charted that the cardiac patient was SOB. AND THE PATIENT SAW IT! He was enraged and spoke to her supervisor about it! lol :chuckle

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Had a rt BKA come back from hospital and saw pedal pulses charted 2+ bilaterally. They are doing amazing things with prosthetics these days:bugeyes:

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