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A nurse enters a patient's room and sees another nurse about to administer medications to the wrong patient and alerts her just before it is given. The nurse who was giving the medications appears embarrassed and quickly leaves the room. What is the other nurse's responsibility in this situation? 

Explanation

•The first nurse has the responsibility to ensure patient safety by bringing this situation to the charge nurse's attention as well as documenting the near miss in an incident report.

•The charge nurse must be notified of near misses and errors that occur as soon as possible after the incident. The charge nurse is responsible to investigate whether the second nurse is providing safe patient care. This notification should be made privately to respect the privacy of the second nurse.

•Incident reporting is not intended to assign blame, but to allow nursing leadership to identify and resolve processes that lead to errors and near misses.  The risk manager will need the first nurse's objective account when investigating the cause of this incident.

Incorrect options:

•Telling other nurses and posting the incident on social media diminishes the credibility of the second nurse and insinuates that she is at fault for the near miss. This is lateral violence that can harm the second nurse's reputation needlessly and is also a violation of confidentiality (HIPAA).

•It is important to report this incident to identify any processes that may have contributed to the incident.

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