help needed!!accidentally accessed/changed physician's medication reconciliation list

[flightcrew]

I'm a new nurse and I just realized that when I was documenting medication history, I accidentally accessed the physician's medication reconciliation list and added two medications. The nurse who oriented me at that time helped me to reset the list and it should be back to the original.

I know it's an honest mistake, but I realized that this can be seen as practice out of my scope. my question is should I let the computer people at my work double check the patient's chart to make sure all the changes I made was reset? also will I be disciplined or lose my license due to this?

thank you.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

Where I work, we use computer charting. There is a place where we document the pt's medication history and a place where the medicines can be reconciled - as in which meds the physician wants the patient to continue taking inpatient. Documenting medication history does not require us to put in the physician's name (therefore creating an order) whereas the med rec does. There have been times where I have done the patient's med rec but it was done as a verbal order (the physician is actually telling me in person or on the phone which meds to continue and which ones to stop for now). Again, that requires me to actually put in an order. The med history DOES NOT.

OP, I honestly wouldn't worry about it. If you were wondering if those changes were reset, you wouldn't see those additional two medications ordered on the patient's EMAR. If you are somehow questioned on this, have your preceptor back you up. I don't see a reason to be questioned, however.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

Gawd, I wish they'd stop scaring nursing students bout losing licensure all the time. If i've said it once, I've said it a dozen times. there is entirely too much moaning about "loosing (sic)/losing my license" on AN. I don't know if it's related to the general catastrophizing outlook on life that comes from the daily news and how it's reported ("if it bleeds, it leads"), or a general innumeracy related to actual statistics and risk assessment. Probably a bit of both.

You can go online and find out who suffered loss or restriction of RN license in your state. My state nursing association publishes them in the newsletter; it's maybe dozens per year, but certainly not hundreds or thousands. People lose their licenses for things like substance abuse at work, narcotics diversion, fraud, felony theft, patient abuse, and so forth. If you aren't planning on doing any of that, your risk of license restriction or loss is minuscule.

******* off the staffing coordinator, forgetting to chart something and not doing an addendum later under established conventions, habitual lateness, getting the stink-eye from your supervisor-- these might cause you to lose a job or a promotion, but they (or certainly making a newbie error in a new computer system and then correcting it) do not rise to the level of losing a license. Try to remember that.