Nurses' experiences with errors in nursing

Nature of nursing errors and their contributing factors in intensive care units

“…In the current study, a higher percentage of errors that contributed to significant patient harm or death was revealed. The discrepancy among studies regarding the seriousness of errors may be another consequence of the lack of standardized methodology (Koehn et al, ). Moreover, the difference in time frames and method of judging the error's impact between studies hinder such comparability.…”

“…Research covering CCNs' response to their errors is limited (Koehn et al, ; Nasrabadi et al, ). Results of the current work revealed that nurses' error disclosure was significantly associated with the degree of induced patient harm.…”

“…() who documented that nurses report only potentially life‐threatening errors and are in line with Cabilan and Kynoch (), who reported that nurses do not always receive appropriate support after error disclosure. These findings imply that it is imperative to create an environment that supports safe error disclosure and provides appropriate support to overcome the dilemma of error disclosure (Cabilan and Kynoch, ; Koehn et al, ). Moreover, nurses should be encouraged to report not only their serious errors but also near misses and harmless errors.…”

New graduate nurses' clinical safety knowledge by the numbers

“…Nurses, especially those with experience limitations, are prone to making errors when they are new and still learning their role, working in an unfamiliar area, and when they are just trying to cope with the demands of the shift (Koehn, Ebright, & Draucker, ). The establishment of transition to practice programmes, such as graduate nurse programmes, offers extended orientations, ongoing support and opportunities to develop advanced skills in a supported environment (Walsh, ).…”

Medical Errors: Next Steps

“…Some of the problems (O'Hagan et al, ) implicated in medical errors and adverse events are: Patient age and severity of illness and preexisting conditions Use of more than five prescription medications Shortage of health‐care personnel, long working hours and fatigue (Landrigan et al, ; Oulton, ; Scheffler, Liu, Kinfu, & Dal Poz, ) Poor health literacy Implementing policies and recommended safety standards inpatient care Poor communication between and among providers, patients, and administrators Safety culture of the health‐care delivery enterprise, including proper record keeping, encouraging reporting errors and documenting adverse events (Koehn, Ebright, & Draucker, ), and Establishing a process to systematically review patient records to identify errors and remedial training for health‐care providers …”