How do these incidents even happen? What pharmacist can’t tell the difference between insulin and a flu shot?
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I mean the vials look so similar. Honestly, why even read the vial before injecting patients. Seems reasonable.
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Anyone should be able to distinguish the two, but at least this clarifies something. Here (and maybe everywhere in Europe?) the flu shot only comes as a pre-filled syringe, which is impossible to mistake for insulin.
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FWIW, a nurse practitioner told me that if it is an on-site visit, and a different nurse packs the travel kit than the one doing the event, the nurse doing the event may never double check the supplies.
At least that’s what I was told related to the Indy TB test incident.
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That’s insane. INSANE to me.
I have a friend who’s a hospital nurse. She checks her own work/math twice and then has a colleague check her work. Because she doesn’t want to be liable for killing people. Why isn’t that standard practice?
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"Tony D. Sellars, director of communications for the Oklahoma State Department of Health, said his agency will review the facility’s report on the incident “to determine if we need to follow up or if their action was sufficient.”
’There is no reason to suggest at this point that the facility should have had a reasonable suspicion that this sort of error would occur or be preventable on their part,’ Sellars said."
Ridiculous
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My understanding is it was a special needs facility where most of the people weren’t able to communicate so even if they were getting sick it might have taken a lot longer to figure out
Edit—- hard to follow thread on little phoe screen, my comment was to the second incident in Oklahoma
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Every flu shot I have ever seen was delivered from the manufacture in a sealed syringe and did not require drawing it up from a vial
Makes sense you know because every flu shot in the world is exactly the same dose and insulin doses vary widely so they have to be drawn up individually
How the two could possibly be confused is impossible to comprehend to me
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Apparently vials exist as well and with vials there’s a small chance of confusing them, but I’ve no clue what would be the advantage of using a vial instead of pre-filled syringes.
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