Just how bad was this? (insulin edition)

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I'm polling the audience here [you].

Quick scenario: Insulin (Humalog) vial is empty. We need more, though not urgently or imminently. Pharmacy is not answering the phone right now. RN takes empty vial and syringe to another unit, grabs their insulin vial (already in use), draws some up, and shoots it into the empty vial. RN returns to home unit and says, "Here we go... got some!"

Seems pretty heinous.

Your thoughts?

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I'm polling the audience here [you].

Quick scenario: Insulin (Humalog) vial is empty. We need more, though not urgently or imminently. Pharmacy is not answering the phone right now. RN takes empty vial and syringe to another unit, grabs their insulin vial (already in use), draws some up, and shoots it into the empty vial. RN returns to home unit and says, "Here we go... got some!"

Seems pretty heinous.

Your thoughts?

Yikes! I've gone to another unit to borrow a multi-patient vile and draw up a dose, but injecting "something" into an empty insulin vial is all sorts of wrong.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Ain't happening where I come from. That's crazy! She could have squirted *anything* in that vial. Nope, nope, nope.

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What could possibly go wrong?

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She would have been better off just borrowing the whole vial.

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Specializes in ICU/community health/school nursing.
Ain't happening where I come from. That's crazy! She could have squirted *anything* in that vial. Nope, nope, nope.

^Exactly.^

Am I paranoid? Not really. That just...creeped me out. Why not bring the whole vial so everyone could see date, dose, etc? If she had time to go to the other unit, might she have had time to go to the pharmacy?

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