notifying families

[Liberty Bellpn]

Reading about med errors in main forum got me thinking about this.

Do you report med errors to the patient and/or their family?

[tatgirl]

At my facility it is policy to let the family members know. We also let the patient know too.

Wendy

LPN

[ktwlpn, LPN]

Reading about med errors in main forum got me thinking about this.

Do you report med errors to the patient and/or their family?

YES---

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

I learned something....

[fultzymom]

We have to tell the patient and who ever the POA is. If the patient is in charge of their own care still then we only have to tell them. Hope this helps.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Yes we do.

[CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN]

Yes, yes, yes. Why not?

[lovingtheunloved, ASN, RN]

Yup yup. And trust me, there is no conversation more nauseating.

[Jolie, BSN]

Having been the POA for an elderly relative who lived in a nursing home, I will say that it is essential for the facility to communicate such information to the family. Without honest communication, there would be no trust.

[marjoriemac, LPN]

We always report med errors if and when they happen to relatives and to GP.

[Liberty Bellpn]

Well, I bring this up because years back, we definately did not report med errors to the family. We did an incident report, notified the MD, and charted the facts without saying "incident", (as we still do.)

Now, it's mandatory to report to families..I think personally, it's the only right thing to do, but yeah, I would hate to make that 'phone call.

Not sure when this changed and also not sure if it's facility policy?

Thanks for the responses.

[Simplepleasures]

When I left nursing two years back at the facility I worked in, we did not report med errors to family, most likely would have been fired, or in deep doodoo.It is the right thing to do, afterall it could have harmed their reletive as much as a fall, etc. I hope the days of coercing staff to hide info or demand the nurse change legal documentation, in favor of the facility, is past.