did I do the right thing????

[sweetieann]

So I work some night shifts, as I am day/night, and we use paper charting. As a night nurse, we have to "redline" the orders that the day/evening nurse transcribed. "Redlining" means that the order was taken off correctly (and if we would redline and there end up being an error, it would ultimately fall on the person who redlined). All that being said, I notice that an evening RN had transcribed an insulin order incorrectly....and a pt ended up missing a sliding scale dose of insulin when one should have been received. Pt outcome was fine. However, I did submit an incident report (description of the event-I did not name the nurse at fault, just described what happened--ie--"The nurse who transcribed this order...." I corrected the order on the MAR. Since I am a relatively new nurse, I asked another experienced day/night nurse what she would have done, and she said she would have told the nurse manager, but not filled out an incident report. Now, I am worried for several reasons: 1)The experienced nurse I confided in with think I'm a "nark" 2)The nurse I told will spread the word--even though I told her the situation in confidence--and now everyone will be EXTRA vigiliant to catch me in an error, since they will think that's the type of person I am, to report someone else's error. Did I do the right thing? policy states I HAVE to report it, or I could end up getting in trouble, as that's part of the expectations, to fill out an incident report if you catch the error. Truth be told, if it was a teeney tiny minute error, I prob wouldn't report, but insulin is kind of a big deal.

Please tell me your thoughts. I'm a relatively new nurse and worry about EVERYTHING.

[ERRNTraveler, RN]

If you hadn't reported it, the incorrect order would have continued to stay on the patient's chart. Of course you did the right thing. Don't worry about what other people think. You are protecting patient's safety- not being a "narc".......

[Virgo_RN, BSN, RN]

You did the right thing.

[manchmal]

I know it's an old thread but I have a similar question about "redlining". Night shift at my facility goes through the day's written or computerized orders and signs (after the staff that pulled the orders off or acknowledged then) and "verifies" they were written into the MAR correctly, etc. Then they sign their name in red ink. I was trained in a digital charting environment and I'm a new grad, so this is new to me. Anyhow. My question is for anyone who has experience with this "redlining." Say you are redlining and you find an error -- like the original poster here. Obviously, you notify doc and fill out incident or med error report. So DO YOU STILL SIGN YOUR NAME if the order was NOT executed correctly? Say a patient was discharged with a wrong dose of a med, and you are to "redline" a printout that has an order for a different dose. I don't know what "redlining" means. I have recently said I was not going to sign my name on an order that was not executed correctly, and I was told to sign it. When I repeated I was uncomfortable with it, I was told "okay, fine, write ERROR and sign it." To me, that is vague and weird to have hanging out in a pt chart without explanation. So I wrote something like "not dispensed as written ERROR" and signed and dated. I cannot find policy on this but people seemed annoyed I wouldn't just sign it. However, I don't see the point in a red verification signature if it doesn't mean everything was executed correctly! I want to know what exactly I'm agreeing to when I sign orders after another RN has already executed them (correctly or incorrectly). HELP! :)