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Role of registered nurses in error prevention, discovery and correction
A E Rogers1, G E Dean, W-T Hwang
1University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, 420 Guardian Drive, Philadelphia Pennsylvania 19104, USA. aerogers@nursing.upenn.edu
Background:
Registered nurses have a vital role in discovering and correcting medical error.
Objective:
To describe the type and frequency of errors detected by American critical care nurses, and to ascertain who made the errors discovered by study participants.
Methods:
Daily logbooks were used to collect information about errors discovered by a random sample of 502 critical care nurses during a 28-day period.
Results:
Although the majority of errors discovered and corrected by critical care nurses involved medications (163/367), procedural errors were common (n = 115). Charting and transcription errors were less frequently discovered. The errors discovered by participants were attributed to a wide variety of staff members including nurses, doctors, pharmacists, technicians and unit secretaries.
Conclusions:
Given the importance of nurses in maintaining patient safety, future studies should identify factors that enhance their effectiveness to prevent, intercept and correct healthcare errors.
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Physicians
The physician's primary responsibility is to diagnose illness and direct the medical or surgical treatment of the condition. The authority to admit patients to a healthcare agency or institution and practice care within that setting is granted to physicians by the healthcare agency or institution itself.