Rewarded for med error?

[Jenni811]

Ok...not really, but attention getting isn't it??

Yesterday, had my FIRST med error in the year i've been working. It was seriously VERY minor and a mistake anyone could have made given the situation (long story). Basically it ended up in me giving a medication at 12:00 when it was due at 2:00. I filled out the proper paperwork, i was really upset about it. we had a "safety huddle" i guess you could call it with my manager, the CNL and myself. To discuss what happened, why it happened. i was in no way being punished, i was really shocked.

The next day (today) i find a candy bar in my mailbox (Hersey! YUM) for my honesty about the med error and helping the hospital in finding ways to decrease medication errors.

Here i am...thinking i'm going to get FIRED because of my stupid med error, not resulting in patient harm. The doctor could have cared less that i gave it at noon instead of two. Infact she asked me to move it till 12:00 later because she thought it would be a more convenient time since she had other meds due at 12:00.

Thought it was really interesting my hospital handled it so great and made it actually pleasant to come to them with a med error. It was more like "What could have our facility done to make this not happen?" type of discussion.

Thoughts?? i hear so many stories on here of people almost losing their jobs to medication errors. and my medication error resulted in a hersey bar.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

They advise you to "let them take care of it" instead of you protecting yourself. Not good. By the time you even know what is going on in the course of an investigation you are already under the bus. This is why they don't want you to get your own insurance. It's like someone saying you should wear a blindfold during a dodgeball game - they'd all laugh under their breaths in the ER once you're wheeled in, then call a psych consult for ya. Remember, your employer is not your family. They are not going to take a fall for nothin if they can let the pressure valve release by handing you over. Trust me. Think about it. Why the hell would they sit you down and tell you not to protect yourself. It makes no sense, right? They do this because they do not believe you are intelligent. Now how do you feel?

They didn't tell us NOT to protect ourselves or that we can't. They were explaining the malpractice insurance and it was asked if we will need more then that. We were talking with Risk Management.

This is the one thing that drives me nuts on this board, no one can speak good about their employer without people insisting they can't possibly be a good employer, there has to be a reason for it. My employer is making big strides in employee retention, in new grad retention and because they finally figured out that happy employees make happy patients. We have stiff competition where I am at. People truly do have a choice where they get their healthcare here because we have 4 different health care facilities within 45 mins of my house alone. Equaling 6 different hospitals. So people have a choice here. 3 of the hospitals are within 15-20 mins of each other. So they are making great strides in making the employees happy and being there for them. Majority of the employees I have talked to at my hospital are HAPPY especially now that a lot of the changes have been happening in the past 1-2 years.

[nola1202]

They used to call it systems theory, if there is an error, it probably lies in the system. If you can make that error so can someone else, so lets look at the system of delivery. I liked it while it lasted, hope this approach you described lasts a while...esp the chocolate, but I suspect that was a smart manager who knew how upset and scared you were feeling.