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?

[Simplepleasures]

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.

Maybe a day will come in which the LTC nurse will be free to chart truthfully, forthrightly, maybe they wont have to be punished by management when they use so called "flag" (ie: using the word "incident" or "constipation",etc.) words in documentation. WHO are we trying to hide onfo from? The State?The family's lawyer, if they sue? Why do we need to protect the employer from investigation if there is nothing to hide? This is one of the reasons why I am so passionate about getting nurses some protection from illegal and unethical practices by LTC Corporations and the managment that MUST do their bidding.