Who's mistake?

[Nurse4561]

If a night nurse gives an early am medication but doesn't sign for it and then the morning shift nurse comes on and gives the medication thinking it hasn't been given, whose mistake is this? I am the latter nurse. No harm to the patient but i still feel awful about it!

[loriangel14, RN]

I would say it was the first nurse's fault for not signing. Would the system not flag that it had already been taken out?

[db2xs]

I think it is a problem of both nurses. I don't know what sort of a setting you work in and what sort of a system you have, but were you able to see that the medication wasn't given by the night nurse? If you could, then I would say that the responsibility was on you to follow up with the night nurse to find out why it wasn't given on their shift. Also, I'm wondering why you were giving a medication that was supposed to be given on a different shift that wasn't on your shift.

I had an experience similar to this, and it is unfortunate that #2 has to deal with the mistakes of someone else, but it does become #2's problem in the long run, especially if they end up administering a medication that shouldn't have been given by them but instead by nurse #1.

[loriangel14, RN]

I see this often at work because we have seniors with behaviors. If we have been trying all night to a pt to settle I'm not waking him up at 7 for his thyroid pill. But we usually pass this on in report . Our system tells you if the med was already given

[db2xs]

I see this often at work because we have seniors with behaviors. If we have been trying all night to a pt to settle I'm not waking him up at 7 for his thyroid pill. But we usually pass this on in report . Our system tells you if the med was already given

I get that. But I'm sure the nurse told you in shift report that they didn't give it. If I see a med that hasn't been marked off on the previous shift, I will ask about it. If it's not "urgent" and I can give it, I will do so, but only if I know that the night shift was unable to and if they ask me to.

[poppycat, ADN, BSN]

I had the opposite problem a few years ago. I do private duty home care on night shift. My client needed to be up early for school so I went ahead & gave his morning meds to help the day nurse. I signed them off on the med sheet & told her in report that they were given. Later that day, my supervisor called me to ask what had happened. I had no idea what she meant. She said the day nurse had given the morning meds because she "didn't know"I had already given them. I told my supervisor I charted the meds as given & told the day nurse in report that I gave them. The supervisor ended up going to the client's home that day & found that I had charted them as given. That mistake was on the day nurse. Needless to say, I never did anything to try to help her after that.