Assignment Task:
Please read the article Two Men Named Patel then discuss which is really about failing to properly identify the patient, but NOTICE this identification mistake happened when CHARTING. Failing to properly ID the patient doesn't just happen face-to-face; it also occurs anytime we look at a chart, document into a chart, file something in a chart and we do NOT confirm we've got the right chart. Bad things can happen.
As a health care worker carrying our written orders in that chart, what might you have done to prevent giving the wrong patient the antibiotic? Be careful here - a lot of students tell me they would double-check the order, do all the "rights" of medication administration....but none of that would help here. The ORDER itself is wrong....so what could you do? Second question: What steps should the doctors have taken to ensure the order was written for the correct patient in the first place?