Med Error

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Working in a home health setting I made a horrible med error with a psychic med injection . I had the order to give the med not realizing another nurse had already given it 2 days prior due to her not inputting the order into the computer system. Today they terminated me. I have be been with this company for 6 years and never had any issues. Anyone else had a situation similar to this. BTW the client is fine with no effects post injection 

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Specializes in CEN, Firefighter/Paramedic.

Hold up..

Prior nurse didn't document med administration, so you gave it because you felt it was due, yet YOU'RE the one terminated?

wow, that's truly awful.  Other nurse have connections or something?  Make no mistake, this med error was on the other nurse.

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Let me clarify, she did a visit with the Client two days prior to me, and gave the injection without communication to anyone that she had an order to give it two days earlier than it was scheduled. Since I only read the order stating it was to be given the day I went and not her actual chart note stating she gave it early I'm the one that got terminated. Ultimately she gave an injection early without an order if that makes sense 

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Specializes in CEN, Firefighter/Paramedic.
RockingBoyMom said:

Let me clarify, she did a visit with the Client two days prior to me, and gave the injection without communication to anyone that she had an order to give it two days earlier than it was scheduled. Since I only read the order stating it was to be given the day I went and not her actual chart note stating she gave it early I'm the one that got terminated. Ultimately she gave an injection early without an order if that makes sense 

And then didn't document it, yet somehow you were supposed to know that she gave the med.. 

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It was the expectation that without communication from her I was supposed to know she did a visit and gave the injection. All the responsibility of the med error was put on me. That's the frustrating part 

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Specializes in CEN, Firefighter/Paramedic.

How exactly did your management articulate that you were supposed to know the med was given early and shouldn't be given at its regularly scheduled time when no documentation existed that said otherwise?

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I'm trying to figure that out myself . The old saying goes if it's not documented "an order put in" in this case it didn't happen so therefore I went and gave it however since I did not go back and look at her chart note that I had no idea it even existed, made it my fault 

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Specializes in Oncology, ID, Hepatology, Occy Health.

Seek legal advice. This is disgraceful. 

I wish you well. 

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Specializes in Substance use disorder RN.

I have a question and comment. Does the medication come in a syringe already? So if not, is it in a multiple-dose vial?  I guess I am asking if there were more than one prefilled syringe because I know some places you have to order the syringe before you are going to give it and the pharmacy would have let you know one was already ordered, or if there were none, you might wonder why? I also wanted to comment that usually I want to know a little background on the patient I am seeing. So I probably would read the last note to see what was going on. I think you shared that the nurse wrote a note. 

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This sounds terrible. Was this an employer that seemed reasonable up to this point? And you had been getting along there for 6 years without any trouble?

I'm sure it's difficult and feels horrible probably, but man....good riddance to these people. What in the world.

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