Nursing Mistakes We Can All Learn From

With the complexity of the job, there are many mistakes that can be made in nursing. Sometimes it’s charting something wrong, but sometimes it’s more serious. The most important things to do after a mistake is made are to take responsibility for it, correct it, and learn from it. One mistake that comes to mind occurred when I had my first patient fall. Thankfully the patient was unharmed, but there were precautions that I could’ve taken to prevent this from happening.

Another staff member and I were transferring my patient from the bedside commode to the chair. Although we were using an assistive device to help her stand and sit on the chair, there were a few mistakes that I made that led to the patient falling. First off, I didn’t use a gait belt, which is safety measure we often use for patients who are at risk for falls. Had I had this on the patient, I could’ve used it for more support when sitting her down. Additionally, the chair was an electric one that had a sit-to-stand feature. This angles the chair so that it is easier for patients to get on and off of it. Unfortunately, I had the chair angled too high, and that combined with the incontinence pad on the chair caused the patient to slide off of the chair and onto the floor.

After a patient falls, we assess them for any injury, and if appropriate, help them off of the floor. We then have a “Post Fall Huddle,” where members of the care team discuss the event as a way to learn from our mistakes and prevent falls in the future. This process helped me to make it a point to use gait belts when moving my patients and to make sure I set up chairs to promote safe patient transfers. Mistakes are not something that anyone wants to make, but as long as something is learned from them, we can use that knowledge to improve our practice to make sure we don’t repeat the misdraw in the future.