Errors as Opportunities

ERRORS AS OPPORTUNITIES The medical mistake happens more often that we would like. As healthcare professionals, we chose our profession to help and heal people not to hurt them. However, mistakes of consequence with adverse outcomes, and mistakes of little consequence occur every day (Porter-O’Grady and Malloch, 2015). At my hospital on the telemetry unit, we had a 35-year-old male patient who needed intravenous (IV) pain medication to help with his sickle cell pain. The nurse who was taking care of the patient was extremely busy that morning. The unit was short of the unit secretary. That meant that nurses were answering phone calls and call lights. UGH!!! The patent called a couple of times for his medications until the nurse was able to deliver his medication. However, the nurse pulled Dilaudid out of Pyxis and gave it to the patient without using scanning device. The nurse attempted to scan medication several times. However, she was unsuccessful. Due to hectic morning, ...