Took out 2 vials of pain med gave the right dose but only scanned one

allnurses Guide · Dec 3, 2017

I took out 2 vials of a pain med. I gave the right dose and wasted the correct amount. I realized after I left that I only scanned 1 vial and changed the amount administered to the right dose on the emar. I was supposed to scan both. Will this show up as a discrepancy? Documented right amount on emar and wasted correct amount. Just didn't scan both vials.

If it was a pixis type machine you may get tagged for an anomaly and be flagged for education. Was you waste cosigned?

Hppy

Accolay · Dec 11, 2017

It may come up as some sort of a discrepancy, or maybe not. It depends on how your EMR is set up. Sound to me like it may be a scanning issue instead of controlled substance issue especially if you wasted with a cosigner. However, always best to treat narcs with kid gloves.

With the system where I work when I scan something it usually scans as the full amount in the vial. If the computer recognizes that that scanned amount (full amount of vial) is more than the dose prescribed in the EMAR, it will usually come up with a warning, "dose scanned is more than dose ordered" and we have to choose "partial package" then manually enter the dose being given, especially if it's a range dose order.

If I had two vials as in your scenario, I would have scanned one vial, the EMAR would have indicated in red that my dose was not as much as the ordered dose, then after scanning the second vial it would give me that "too much drugs" message.

Technically, you should scan everything scannable either way if you can just because, you know, safeguards, but sometimes computers don't cooperate.

So hopefully you had a cosigner for your narc. This is what the powers that be are more concerned about in my experience. It really depends on the policies where you work. Check with your manager to make sure about the scanning issue. They should also be able to show you your scanning percentages.

In conclusion: probably wont be a big deal unless you had nobody waste with you.