Incidence

Whenever something bad happens on the ward, the nurses have to fill in an incident report. They have to describe the incident etc and how to prevent it from occurring again and the doctor (usually me) will have to write a little report at the end of it and sign it.

I find this extremely annoying. Fair enough if the incident is something major like the patient fell down and hit his head. Or the nurse was trying to help a patient up and accidentally grabbed her shoulder and pulled it (she tore the patient's tendon by the way). Usually I have to examine the patient and then write whatever I think should be done etc.

The FUNNIEST incident report I ever read was in the surgical ward. The patient had woken up in the middle of the night because the intercom had announced "CODE GREY". Apparently it was so loud, it gave her a fright and she jumped out of bed causing her IV drip to be ripped out of her vein. The nurse had written in the recommendation section: Don't call codes too loudly at night. Aduhh...kelakarnya....

Anyhoo, in rehab I get like 4-5 incident reports EACH day to assess and sign. But they are soooooooooo insignificant that they have become annoying. Things like THE PATIENT'S BLISTER POPPED! Boleh tak!?@?!?#. Some are less major like patient taking the next bed's patient's medications huhu. If it was a dangerous medication error takpe la jugak. The patient just took simvastatin instead of pravastatin. It's the same thing aje..huhuu. But lots of medication errors in rehab. For one, the electronic drug chart is not helping. Secondly, the patients are encouraged to take their own medications supervised by the nurse. Sometimes they don't wait til the nurse comes. Three, the patients are on truckloads of tablets!

This is what happens when the society is litigatious.