Nurses worry about being reported for IV errors
15 posts across 3 communities in the last 30 days; 87% from r/nursing.
“So the other nurse did check the pump or didn't check the pump? It seems you have not really answered if the other nurse checked the pump in the situation you are in. And you don't have to answer that here but I am assuming that is the problem because if 2 checked and the error…”
“No. If things transpired the way you reported this will be an error and it shouldn't happen but... it happens. Meds are late/missed all the time. IVs go bad and by the time they're able to get a new one on some patients it's too close to the next dose. Sometimes the problem is…”
“Yea they’ll write an incident report because it was, but in the grand scheme this is a very small error that you’ll learn from and won’t make again. Not a single one of us will end our career without making a mistake. If someone tells you they haven’t, they are either lying or…”
Several nurses express concern over potential repercussions from mistakes made while administering intravenous medications, specifically regarding incorrect setup and bedside checks. They fear disciplinary action or reporting to authorities, even when the error didn't directly harm a patient. Some offer reassurance based on past experiences and suggest focusing on future caution.
SOURCES (46)
“After I left one of my ER jobs, I heard about a nurse who has at least 20 years experience gave a patient IV epi for an allergic reaction (you literally never do IV epi for that. Only IM). The patient coded. So I really…”
“You must be new nurse and one day someone will report your errors remember this …. Only time i report a nurse is if she doing and steal drugs or made a error that almost kill someone [re: Why have you reported another nurse?]”
“I wouldn’t report this on a PIV, I would fix it though and yes tell them to pay attention to what they’re doing [re: Why have you reported another nurse?]”
“Hello all, I had my first unexpected code yesterday and I am still a bit shaken up. For background, I was a MICU nurse for over a year and am orienting to our Coronary ICU. I have pulled at least 20-30 central lines before. None with any issues. But yesterday when I was pulling this man’s introducer after removing his swan-Ganz, he started having a massive coughing fit and subsequently asystole arrested. Thankfully we got ROSC after 6 minutes, but holy fuck. My preceptor was at bedside and said”
Nope. Nothing in the chart other than that medication was given.
“Same here, and we have cameras in the med room too to watch you waste with a second nurse”
“Tell your manager exactly what you said here, he was wearing long sleeves and when asked if he had an IV he said no. End of discussion. In 18 years, I’ve sent more home with an IV in than I should’ve. It happens. You’ll get a chat and re-educated.”
“I had a patient who was also a gym buff and he possessed the bounciest, ropiest veins; you could practically hear them throbbing across the room. For whatever reason, I missed him once (with a butterfly, ffs 🤦♀️) for reasons that are still unclear to me; I was paying attention, the bevel was up, the patient didn’t move…sometimes that shit just happens. It could be you, it could be scar tissue, it could be faulty equipment, it could be not using a tourniquet, who the fuck knows? Keep it moving”
“For real! Or the patients who are like YOU GET ONE TRY. Like HOW DO YOU THINK THAT IS HELPFUL?!”
“You’ll be fine, has happened to me several times throughout my decade of ER nursing. , you asked and he said no. If your job treats you poorly, your job sucks.”
“Hi all, So another tech came to me today and explained boluses to me and it had me questioning whether I’ve been doing boluses right (disclaimer if I’ve been doing them wrong, no patient was harmed) Anyways, if a doc came to me and said to give a bolus over 15mins and give me the rate of 10ml/kg. I’d take the patients weight, multiply it by 10ml/kg and get my VTBI and then multiply that rate by 4 and then use that number as the rate etc 40kg x 10ml/kg = 400ml (VTBI) 400ml x 4 = 1600ml (rate) And”
“I got a patient once who had a Liberty catheter that the day nurse had left hooked to suction”
“So the other nurse did check the pump or didn't check the pump? It seems you have not really answered if the other nurse checked the pump in the situation you are in. And you don't have to answer that here but I am assuming that is the problem because if 2 checked and the error was still not caught there is a problem in the process or it's not being followed.”
“So, psych nurse here, long story short, wrong patient got the wrong psych med. Provider says not a huge safety concern on the administration (it's not gonna harm them) but I feel terrible. Been a nurse over a year, first time med error.. what should I expect from admin? I'm fearing the worst obviously... submitted by /u/-RNinja [link] [comments]”
“Di ako makatulog. I’ve been feeling really bad about the D5NR 1L na na-fast drip and consumed within only 2 hours. It was really my mistake because I didn’t double-check the infusion rate. Akala ko regulated na yung IV since wala naman na-endorse sa akin na naka-fast drip siya, kaya naging kampante ako and I assumed na okay na yung regulation when I received the patient from the OR. I trusted the endorsement and didn’t think na kailangan ko pa siyang i-double-check agad. Thankfully, nung time na”
“Am I screwed? I called IT and made them aware about it submitted by /u/anybodycandance [link] [comments]”
Hi all new nurse to inpatient here... so I work on a floor with a lot of narcotics and I pulled 10mg oxycodone from the omnicell and administered 10mg to the patient.…
“Most places protocol is call 911 if you've given a third dose of nitro and it's not worked. Her bp was already very low and it wasn't working (stopping the pain) so you don't really have a choice. I think you did the right thing. I think it would have really compromised the patient if you would try to start HD, as BP needs to be higher. Then you will have to ship them out anyway.”
“No. If things transpired the way you reported this will be an error and it shouldn't happen but... it happens. Meds are late/missed all the time. IVs go bad and by the time they're able to get a new one on some patients it's too close to the next dose. Sometimes the problem is with pharmacy...they can't get a dose to the unit on time to save their own lives. Nurses will get distracted...If another patient has a legit emergency I give fuck all if another patient's antibiotic i”
“During an ER visit I received toradol in my iv line with gravity fluids and I jumped so hard from the pain I felt air between my ass and the cart. The vein was toast after that with a palpable cord. I should have taken before/after pictures of the healing process to show just how much potential IV space is now forever lost in my right arm. Never before that did I really get to see the process start to end.”
“Not an uncommon (and sadly often fatal) error back in those days. The saline vials and potassium vials were 30 mL and identical down to they both had green pop off lids with just a slight shade difference. There were all sorts of really awful medication and so many other errors happening which is why the 100,000 lives campaign was so important.”
“Back in the day when we had multidose bags for everything and a lot of stuff was not on a pump, including potassium. So you would measure out the volume for 20 meq K in a buretol drip chamber and run the potassium drip over an hour via gravity by counting drops. (I am not making this up) You learned real quick to hook the buretol drip chamber up in the IV hook so it was as high or higher than the big bag of 100 K in 100 cc so 100 meq wouldn't go on all at once because some clamp got lose. Di”
“Yea they’ll write an incident report because it was, but in the grand scheme this is a very small error that you’ll learn from and won’t make again. Not a single one of us will end our career without making a mistake. If someone tells you they haven’t, they are either lying or aren’t aware. It happens, learn from it and move on. This really is not a huge issue.”
“So i’m a new mother baby nurse and recently moved to a high risk mother baby unit where more of our moms are on magnesium sulfate. Usually they have maintenance fluids running and 99.9% of the time it’s LR. When i got onto shift (nights) we dual verified and I’m so used to pts being on LR I saw the LR running at 75, the mag running at the correct rate/dose and everything looked good. Throughout the night I changed her LR when it emptied to a fresh bag one time (also forgot to scan it in which wa”
“hey everyone! i’m a new grad in a med/surg unit, and i am really bad at placing iv’s. during nursing school, we didn’t get much practice, especially on a human arm. yesterday, i missed placing an iv on a patient with decent veins twice, even with the vein finder. so my question is, do you guys have any advice or tips and tricks? i feel like i am going too deep when i initially insert the needle, or i just psych myself out. please help! submitted by /u/OkWeakness1858 [link] [com”
“Hi everyone. This is my second day, and I thought the sharps container was sealed, so I threw it all away like that. But the solution leaked onto the floor and the needles poked through the bag. I wiped up the spill, put two or three more bags on top, and carefully placed it in the bin. But I feel like this is awful and I'm doomed when they come to dispose of the Class B waste.What do you think the worst-case scenario is? I'm so worried I could cry. submitted by /u/m”
“I precepted a nurse and accidentally stuck her with a needle and she had to go to the ER for testing. I felt horrible and stupid.”
“Yes there are a few mixtures that precipitate immediately and those should be avoided”
“I used to use dial-a-flows, especially when the IV pumps were such shit. Flow rates and dosage calculations should still be taught; it's too dangerous not to. We cannot rely on everything electronic as our power grid has never been adequately updated to anything super reliable long-term. It's actually easier to do nursing without all of the nonsense.”
“I was precepting a new grad. And we gave 2 units of blood used blood tubing and had to give platelet and I approved using REGULAR IV TUBING. Was caught by another nurse ( pt went to procedure). I’m in the ICU. They wrote an incident report which is understandable. I feel so horrible it’s eating me every time I think of it. I feel so ashamed when I see my preceptee and also the manager. I’m not sure why and how I thought it was ok. I truly didn’t know. It’s scary I know. It’s Joe ingrained in my”
“You give me hope. Same situation, I work inpatient BMT and I am scared of iv starts 😭 but would like to move to outpatient infusion”
“i work in pre-op and i just started getting a lot better after doing it for a year lol. IVs are a skill that takes A LOT of practice. It’s my whole job and it took me a long time to get good at it. Even now, I have occasional misses.”
“Ask your manager to go practice IVs in pre op for a day. That’s what my manager let me do and it helped a ton. Once you do like 15 in a day you’ll learn the skill pretty quickly”
“Hi. I’m a new grad and I recently got trained on inserting IVs. I find myself kind of panicking when starting on people with barely visible and barely palpable veins. Like genuinely no matter how much I readjust the tourniquet there’s no fkn way I’m feeling anything still. I get really discouraged because I eventually want to move to a unit that regularly starts IVs, I work with generally stable pts, so it’s not often we get to start IVs. I know the arm anatomy and I somehow still miss often whe”
“Yeah got chewed out at work for not recognizing that the IV was inflitrated so yeah I have to start sweating this shit now that I have people trying to throw me under the bus. Some nurses really really dislike float nurses.”
“Ok so we all know those patients with the hella swollen arms. Like you needed to use ultrasound to have any hope of starting an IV cause you can't palpate worth shit? So typically when you power flush a blown IV you can feel it puff up fairly easily. I've had some that I could feel the saline flow out of the vein really well. But what do you do when you have an IV you can't really palpate much of anything. Arm is super swollen. No resistance when flushing. And there is blood return.”
“Not a huge mistake - a very little mistake. No one was hurt. When we had different pumps I did this all the time. Our new pumps wont let us start unless the 2ndary is open.”
“Yeah it was 6:15 when I gave the med and I went to give report at 6:35 and she didn’t wanna do bedside report so we never went back into check it but I def should’ve checked it myself I just feel dumb I need to be more careful in the future. Thank u for ur kind words”
“She was so mean about it too in the messages. Literally acting like I didn’t set up the iv at all. I’m just hoping she doesn’t go crazy with reporting me”
“That’s a relief 😭 I definitely started it I even fixed the air bubbles in it. It looks like it was completely disconnected. I just feel so stupid”
“Most institutions only get fired if you kill a pt, and even then, it’s up for debate Also if you’re caught lying about vitals, stealing You’re fine If you know you started the IV, then stick to your guns. Say the patient was messing with the IV pump as you observed, but the only truth you know is that you started it”
“I just finished a night shift and got a text that apparently the secondary IV bag I hung wasn’t running. The pt. I hung it up for is AOx4 and knows how to deal with the IV. I heard them grunt and shut the IV off after it was beeping (the iv has been beeping cause there were bubbles in the secondary line which Ig I didn’t fix properly). I didn’t think much of this but could they have done smth to it? Idk how tho even happened im so stressed out rn I feel like im gonna get fired. submitted b”