January 18, 2005: Nature and Prevalence of Errors in Patient Care:"A Penn School of Nursing study provides the first detailed description of the nature and prevalence of errors by hospital staff nurses. During a 28-day period, 393 registered nurses kept a detailed journal of their errors and prevented errors, referred to as near-errors. Thirty percent of the nurses reported at least one error during the 28-day period, and 33 percent reported a near-error. Although the majority of errors and near-errors were medication-related, the nurses also reported a number of procedural, transcription and charting errors. The findings were presented in the November issue of the journal Applied Nursing Research and are derived from a previous study that examined staff nurse fatigue and patient safety."
http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/volumes...r.html#patient

Andrew Lopez, RN
http://www.nursefriendly.com/news