6 Rights or 5 Rights?

[picurn10]

of med administration? What does your school use? I'd always heard it as the 5-rights, but we are taught it's 6-rights, the last being "right documentation" is this a new things that they are moving to, or just our school?

also, are you taught to call patients "clients" "patients" or something else altogether?

Just curious what others do...

[school28]

We use 7 rights, but i see how 10 rights can be very helpful I am going to use these 10 rights when i do my assessments.

[Bobylon]

Hmmmmm .... our school stresses numbers 1 - 7 ...... although 8 - 10 make sense tacked on, as well :)

Heh, we have "10 rights". Not kidding. Big school. Here they are:

1. Right Patient

2. Right Drug

3. Right Dose

4. Right Route

5. Right Time

6. Right Documentation

7. Patient right to refuse

8. Right Assessment

9. Right Patient Education

10. Right Evaluation

[TexasGirl24]

It is 6....and yes it is a fairly new thing. Some schools may do that "10 rights" thing, but I guarantee the majority does 6.......and no you're not going to fail if you do 6. Education, Evaluation and Assessment are obvious! You should know that you need to do those.....why put it in the "rights"?

[Guest219794]

I believe the 5 rights refer to basic things, that if checked, will avoid a medicaion error. There are many other things that need to be right. The list could go well beyond 10. An error in one of these will not necessarily constitute a medication error.

for example, if you document: ms 2 mg iv given for pain That is a documentation error, as ms should not be used. It is not a medication error, like giving 2 mg of mag sulphate would be.

So- if an instructor, or textbook wants you to memorize 6,7, or 23 rights, no real harm. just be sure you don't screw up the 5 righs in real life.

hherrn

[Natingale, EdD, RN]

It is 6....and yes it is a fairly new thing. Some schools may do that "10 rights" thing, but I guarantee the majority does 6.......and no you're not going to fail if you do 6. Education, Evaluation and Assessment are obvious! You should know that you need to do those.....why put it in the "rights"?[/quote]

Ohh I dont know, why do we need to have the Right drug and right patient?

That seems pretty obvious right? You will be surprised how many people dont evaluate or educate their patients when giving meds.

You are right though, the OP cant go wrong knowing 6. In fact its just one more than 5, no biggie. The test question will probably say which is NOT part of the 6 rights... and the correct answer will be "right to remain silent" or something like that.

[TexasGirl24]

Yeah....our test question said something like "Which of the 6 rights is missing in this scenario?" It was a multiple choice. Seems pretty easy, but they tried to confuse us on a couple of them.

[donsterRN, ASN, BSN]

We learned 7. The first basic five, plus the right to know what the client is getting, and the right of the client to refuse.

And although I wrote "client", I still use the term "patient".

[shrimpchips, LPN]

We use the 5 rights:

right drug

right patient

right dose

right route

right time

But my book and even my notes have the other 5 rights:

right education

right to refuse

right assessment

right evaluation

right documentation

[Fermin Hernandez, ADN, ASN, RN]

The right Patient right to refuse doesn't even make sense.

The rights have matching wrongs, like...

wrong dose

wrong drug

wrong patient

wrong time

wrong route

wrong documentation

so what is a wrong patient right to refuse? "right to refuse" changes the meaning of right as compared to the others and is just sloppy teaching imho

of course patient's right to refuse is important, but maybe name it something like right consent? Of course wrong consent sounds odd too by my own logic...

[PEBBLES1]

I wast taught 6 rights

[olympia]

Heh, we have "10 rights". Not kidding. Big school. Here they are:

1. Right Patient

2. Right Drug

3. Right Dose

4. Right Route

5. Right Time

6. Right Documentation

7. Patient right to refuse

8. Right Assessment

9. Right Patient Education

10. Right Evaluation

My school teaches the 10 rights also, same as above. I believe this is just their first or second year teaching the ten, previously they taught 6. The ten mentioned above can also be found in Kozier and Erb's Fundamentals of Nursing 8th ed. text.

Hope that helps!

[hollie91999]

We were taught 8 rights.

1. right medication

2. right patient

3. right route

4. right time

5. right dose

6. right documentation

7. right information

8. right of patient to refuse