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Discussion

Losing my sleep

Hello,

Patient was at the clinic to receive his final dose of IV antibiotic ceftriaxone 1 gm and his IV  was supposed to be discontinued. I forgot to flush the line with 5 cc NS after administering IV antibiotics and removed IV cannula from his hand after the medication was over . I realized that later while documenting and mentioned it in my notes.  I feel bad for the mistake I made. I informed my supervisor about it

Will this will cause harm to the patient or if I need to take any further action.

Please help

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    Manjeet said:

    [...]

    Will this will cause harm to the patient or if I need to take any further action.

    Please help

    If the patient received the entire dose of antibiotic, and all you did was not flush the IV prior to removal, the patient is unharmed  and there is nothing else you need to do.

  • Quote

    The purpose of a flush is primarily to make sure medication is fully administered and doesn't sit in the line and become a source of infection, embolus, or form precipitate in the presence of another IV med. Since the IV was removed immediately after the infusion, the only effect was that the patient didn't have every single drop of antibiotic administered.
     

    If your clinic gives it as a push dose, there was probably 3ml (30mg) of the dose that wasn't given. If it was an infusion of 100ml, 3mg wasn't given. While it's probably innocuous, it's worth keeping in mind that antibiotic resistance can occur if that happens regularly over many many infusions and plasma concentration doesn't reach therapeutic thresholds. Just once is hardly enough to cause that. 

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    • Author

    It was ceftriaxone 1 gram..patient got if for 3 weeks everyday and that was the last day.

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