Oh, the irony . . .

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Just finished a employer-required on-line tutorial on med errors (I work in MS-ICU at a large mid-west hosp), and had to laugh about it. Our pharm is always behind in scheduled deliveries; last Tues it was 4 hours behind. We scan our meds, and there is no option available for "pharm late again." I guess my employer does not consider a pt getting his meds late due to the pharm a med error . . . :devil:

Specializes in Telemetry, ICU.
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Mishysmom: Did you hear about Dennis Quaid's newborns receiving one thousand times the dose of heparin? I like the scanner idea, but I see it has its own problems. As long as everybody is too busy, I'm afraid med errors will continue. What do you do if a med is four hours behind? Just give it?

Diahni

Hi Diahn The med was an IV IGG; yes, I gave it, actually it was 5 hrs late. I documented in the notes that it was given immediately after it arrived from the pharm; also documented what I went thru trying to get it. I have not heard of anyone on our unit, or in the hosp for that matter (my daughter is an RN who works in admin in our oncology unit) ever being disciplined for giving a med late due to a late delivery. At our last meeting our unit director mentioned our med scan percentages, and just let it go. We are in the middle of transitioning to all computer charting, and everything is out of whack. By the way, does anyone love computer charting as much as I do????

I heard about the Quaid babies; here in Indy last year several babies died from the same OD. I beieve in the Indy case it started with a pharm error?? Does anyone remember?

Specializes in Med/Surge, Private Duty Peds.

the facility i work is implementing a new system that is costing 13 million. it will be this robot( a contest to name it) that fills the meds, labels them, does inventory and who knows what else. the meds then will be put into this new medcart, and then it have to be scanned, the pt scanned and etc, ect, etc,

just waiting on the fun that will begin in jan, when all this starts.:uhoh21:

Since short-staffing/obscene workload is not acceptable as an excuse for nurses, I don't understand why it is acceptable for pharmacy or any other department in the hospital. No excuse is valid enough when it comes to nurses, yet any excuse flies for everyone else.

Wouldn't it be interesting if every department/employee had to face the same intense, obsessive, intrusive scrutiny that nurses do when it comes to doing their job.

Wouldn't it be interesting if every department/employee had to validate, justify, and sit through intense "Monday morning quarter-backing" over every decision, action, or non-action that nurses do when it comes to doing their job.

Wouldn't it be interesting to see how much easier the nurse's job would be if every departmant/employee had to achieve the same expected, impossible and ridiculously high standards when it comes to job performance that nurses do.

the facility i work is implementing a new system that is costing 13 million. it will be this robot( a contest to name it) that fills the meds, labels them, does inventory and who knows what else. the meds then will be put into this new medcart, and then it have to be scanned, the pt scanned and etc, ect, etc,

just waiting on the fun that will begin in jan, when all this starts.:uhoh21:

name him will robinson.

warning! warning!

Specializes in ICU,PCU,ER, TELE,SNIFF, STEP DOWN PCT.

:lol2::lol_hitti

Name him Will Robinson.

WARNING! WARNING!

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