5 Things to Know about Your Medications to Avoid In-hospital Errors

As a professional patient,I speak from the pulpit of experience when I say make learning about your medications a priority.

Insist that you and the doctor are clear on exactly what medications you’ll be given. Furthermore, you should be familiar with what your medication’s general purposes are, as well as the dangers associated with their improper administration.

Why do I make these recommendations? Because people (including medical professionals) make mistakes. The following story illustrates this fact.

While a patient at G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VAMC this past weekend, I avoided a hazardous situation because I asked my nurse what pills she was giving me.

I knew from speaking with my doctor that I was prescribed Lasix at 60mg, 4 times a day intravenously. This is all the Lasix (Furosemide) I was to be given while in the hospital. However, among other pills, the nurse was handing me the same Lasix dosage in pill form. Now add that up and it’s 480 mg/day.

Lasix is a potassium losing diuretic that can cause people’s potassium level to drop which could cause a serious (even fatal) cardiac incident.

I refused the extra doses because I was aware of:

1. What medications I was taking
2. How much I was supposed to take
3. How It was to be administered
4. Why it is given
5. What could happen if I took too much

You have to be your own advocate. You have to be aware there are nurses out there who don’t think for themselves. That said, they seem to be drones who don’t pay attention to anything except how to do the least amount of work, and how long till quitting time.

Unfortunately, some nurses have a bad attitude. They think they‘re above the patient‘s reproach, because patients don’t know anything. The following story illustrates this nicely. It also happened during my latest hospitalization.

Many of my nurses always administer my Albumin piggy-backed with saline flush bag. They do this because they think it is easier to prime the tubing with saline(Albumin is really thick), and so the tubing flushes clean automatically with saline after the albumin empties.

The problem is, many times when they do this, I get all saline, and none of the Albumin. Saline (fluid) is THE LAST THING I need when I’m going for diuresis (fluid reduction)

I tried avoiding this error by suggesting we clamp off the saline tubing like other nurses do. To make a short story shorter, she said, “If patient’s know so much, what am I here for.” with quite a note of sarcasm.

I know getting the saline pumped into me wasn’t dangerous, so I didn’t push the issue and allowed her to do it the way she wanted.

Guess what happened? 30 minutes later the Albumin was still in the bottle on the IV pole. I called that nurse back to my room and let her know I was not one of those patients who doesn’t know what’s going on.

My point is, if you are able, you should involve yourself in your care. Don’t passively assume your nursing staff will make no errors. Simply knowing what, how, why, when and how much will go a long way toward reducing the risk of inpatient medication errors.

If you’d like to discuss this further, or have a related story to tell, use the comment link below this post. I’ll make it a point to post your thoughts on this site. Thanks.