GNA President Hewett's statement on recent conviction of nurse RaDonda Vaught
Posted about 3 years ago by Charlotte Endemano
March 28, 2022- The Georgia Nurses Association is saddened and alarmed to learn that a former Vanderbilt University Medical Center Registered Nurse was convicted of reckless homicide and abuse of an impaired adult after mistakenly administering a medication that led to the patient’s death.
The criminalization of a medication error is a dangerous signal to send to the healthcare industry. Each year in the United States approximately 7,000 to 9,000 people die of a medication error. (Tariq RA, Vashisht R, Sinha A, Scherbak Y. Medication Dispensing Errors And Prevention. 2021 Nov 14. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan–. PMID: 30085607.)
Hospital systems encourage a non-punitive approach to errors in order to continuously improve system processes. Root cause analyses are conducted to determine exactly what happened in order to prevent the error from occurring again. The criminalization of this event will create an environment where transparency, communication, self-reporting, and collaboration is not valued, leading to an unsafe health care setting.
The GNA agrees with the American Nurses Association's statement: “Health care is highly complex and ever-changing, resulting in a high risk and error-prone system. Organizational processes and structures must support a “just culture”, which recognizes that health care professionals can make mistakes and systems may fail. All nurses and other health care professionals must be treated fairly when errors occur. ANA supports a full and confidential peer review process in which errors can be examined and system improvements and corrective action plans can be established. Swift and appropriate action should and must always be taken as the situation warrants.”
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It is very heart breaking to hear about such a profound impact that not only effects our community as healthcare providers, but our ... vulnerable populations (elderly and sick of all ages), and most of all our trustworthy families that rely on us daily to "Do No Harm". These are the unfortunate times where our communities as complex as they are on multiple levels need to create those such spaces we highly speak of such as transparency, honesty without an alternative agenda, and truly what it looks like to educate on all levels no matter the position. As healthcare providers we carry a heavy, heavy burden to "know" from our novice beginnings to our experienced futures that can easily be missed if we are not continuously mentored and covered by a team that means us well in every aspect of our lives. If never before it hasn't been important, now is the time to mentor, educate, and never assume to "know".
With more and more nurses leaving the field for less stressful and lifestyle appropriate employment, these errors will increase. This conviction will also increase non-reporting incidents and or near misses. They use to joke that “doctors bury their mistakes “ ( it wasn’t funny then and especially not now). We need a system that requires several levels of information and a second signature before an override can occur. We have to protect ourselves because it seems, no one else will.
I, too, am saddened and angry at the conviction of a nurse for a medication error. I am also disgusted that the Vanderbilt Hospital didn't support this nurse and prevent a criminal trial from taking place. Nurses are going to refuse to report errors for fear of the same thing happening. Besides, the error by an nurse almost always is a systems error than an individual error. We recently witnessed the acquittal of a young man who shot and killed 2 people and wounded a third. But for a nurse who made an error - she'll likely receive prison time - unless the judge decides otherwise. No justice in this.
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