Month: November 2011

Fatal overdose of KCL caused by poor handwriting, lack of diligence

by

ISMP Medication Safety Alert: “A nursing home resident died from cardiac arrest after receiving a 10-fold overdose of oral potassium chloride because an order for 8 mEq was misinterpreted by several facility staff members as 80 mEq.” – A poorly handwritten order was a contributing factor to the error. What’s really scary about this error … Read more

Portable storage media, the scourge of patient privacy

by

LA Times: “Altogether, 16,288 patients’ information was taken from the home of a physician whose house was burglarized on Sept. 6, according to the UCLA Health System. The data were on the physician’s external hard drive, officials said. Though the hard drive was encrypted, a piece of paper with the password was nearby and is … Read more