am I screwed?

Nurses HIPAA

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discharged a pt the other day and gave him two prescriptions on discharge. One for pain meds and another for antibiotics; except the antibiotics weren't for him! Someone had stapled his pain med prescription to the antibiotic prescription and I didn't notice that the incorrect name was on it. Now there is an investigation going on and I'm not sure what to do or how screwed I am. Has this happened to anyone else? Any advice on what i should do?

thanks

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Specializes in CICU, Telemetry.

Was the error caught before the patient took the medication? Did he bring it to pharmacy and they realized the error there? Was another patient discharged WIThOUT his abx prescription?

You'll probably get spoken to about the need to check more carefully, maybe a written warning, and your boss will send an email to the whole unit reminding them to check prescriptions so no one else does it either. You're probably not in deep ****.

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
You'll probably get spoken to about the need to check more carefully, maybe a written warning, and your boss will send an email to the whole unit reminding them to check prescriptions so no one else does it either. You're probably not in deep ****.

I would tend to agree. I know of situations in the ED were given another pt's prescription, some paper from another pt's instructions or even the entire incorrect set of D/C instructions. Basically what happened was was CCU described--informal verbal warning, email to the unit, yadda, yadda, yadda.

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pt's pharmacy caught the error, so the pt didn't take any meds he wasn't supposed to. Not sure if the other pt got their abx or not...

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Specializes in ER.

Happens very often unfortunately...

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
discharged a pt the other day and gave him two prescriptions on discharge. One for pain meds and another for antibiotics; except the antibiotics weren't for him! Someone had stapled his pain med prescription to the antibiotic prescription and I didn't notice that the incorrect name was on it. Now there is an investigation going on and I'm not sure what to do or how screwed I am. Has this happened to anyone else? Any advice on what i should do?

thanks

I'm most sorry about the punitive trend regarding med errors that seems to have gained traction. Terrified nurses doesn't equal reduced errors.

It may be a fact-finding investigation to document the chain of events. In either case, your best approach is to stay calm, answer their questions in a way that lets them know you have thought about the incident, and what you plan to do differently going forward.

I may be helpful to write a narrative you can review before any meetings you're asked to attend. Anxiety can cause your normal thought process to disappear.

Best wishes!

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Just last week my oncologist (yes the Dr) handed me some helpful nutrition information she printed, along with another patient's pathology report. It's so easy to do. In my case, I didn't find the error until a week later. It happens frequently - check those printers carefully!

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Specializes in Public health program evaluation.

Good advice about writing out your thoughts before heading into question period!

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