How Can you Ask this?
Posted By: Yak-Yak on 2006-03-09
In Reply to: Life-threatening MT errors. sm - Jerkette
Sadly, yes, sometimes all a hospital or doctor has to base patient care on is a medical record - a discharge summary or something laying around in their files. This is particularly dangerous for the elderly - those in nursing homes - or debilitated patients who cannot verbalize or simply have no knowledge of their medical status. Wrong dosages typed are a big danger, as well as entirely wrong drugs - I have found drugs wrong in records where the patient was supposedly on an Alzheimer drug when it was an antibiotic. Or the MT types a med incorrectly and the patient is allergic to it. Maybe a double dose of digoxin seems like not a big deal to you, but it can kill an elderly or feeble patient who is on a dozen meds. And the dosage is in the correct realm of dosing - so docs or nurses won't notice it. Things are not always obviously big zinger errors. Or if MTs get operations wrong, etc. If you don't understand at all how an error in a patient record could be life-threatening and have to ask us, honestly maybe this is not the best career choice for you. The records have to be nothing short of perfect and accurate. Yes, sometimes doctors do even dictate the wrong dosage - particularly when you get into mcg and things like thyroid meds - a professional/educated MT will immediately recognize a dosing error and report it. Stuff like that - we can impact a patient's life - whether directly by making a typo ourselves, or by not noticing an error someone else made. If it was you or a loved one in that hospital bed, you'd want accuracy for sure!
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