Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Helping Hand - July 2019 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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tions and allergies. It only takes a minute to review, and your patient stays safe. You can download a free medication reference app like Pocket Pharmacist. Don't forget to read back. We all know how important it is to confirm a verbal order. Don't let time pressures cause you to skip this step. Make sure that any verbal order gets read back and confirmed before administration. Talk about it often to ensure that it is a culture in your facility. All VORB (Verbal Order Read Back) activities need to be documented and signed off in the medical record "as soon as possible," per CMS. Don't let drug shortages put your patients at risk. With all the drug shortages, it may be necessary to substitute com- monly used medications with an alternative. It's a good idea to hold an in-service on any ordered med substitutions. Discuss why and how the new med is being used, and any information staff needs to know to ensure that the change doesn't lead to an error. Safe syringe use It's said that medication errors and adverse drug events that occur during the course of surgery are 3 times more likely to harm a patient than errors committed during other types of hospital care. Yes, these errors will persist, as will our rushed and busy environ- ment, missed or misunderstood orders, and look-alike or sound- alike medications. OSM Ms. Mattson (leslie@almss.com) is a nurse consultant with ALM Surgical Solutions in Atlanta, Ga., which offers surgical consulting, development and operations support. Check out her blog, A Scrub's Life, at ascrubslife.com. 4 5 J U L Y 2 0 1 9 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 2 7

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