The nurse accidentally provides a patient with 10 mg of warfarin instead of 5 mg as prescribed.Which action should the nurse take?

A) No action is necessary because an extra 5 mg of warfarin is not harmful.
B) Call the prescriber and ask her to change the order to 10 mg.
C) Document on the chart that the drug was given and indicate the drug was given in error.
D) Complete an incident report according to the facility's policy.

Question

Sydney Renee · Accepted Answer

Final Answer : D, Explanation :  Administering the wrong dose of a medication is a medication error and should be reported according to the facility's policy. A medication error report should be completed to document what happened, what action was taken, and what can be done to prevent similar errors from happening in the future. Even though an extra 5 mg of warfarin might not cause any adverse effects, the nurse should still report the error. Neither calling the prescriber to change the order nor documenting the error on the chart is appropriate at this point since the error has already occurred.

Definitions

Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

Related questions