Pro tip: stop charting vitals on autopilot, a nurse showed me why

I used to just punch in BP and HR without thinking twice, been doing it for 6 years. Then last Tuesday I had a patient with a silent MI and her BP was totally stable but her pulse was 118. I almost missed it because I was just scribbling numbers. The charge nurse pulled me aside and said 'you chart what you see, not what you expect.' That stuck with me. Now I actually look at the trend line before I type anything in. Has anyone else caught something obvious like that, just by slowing down for two seconds?

1 comments

1 Comment

reese_perry61mo ago

Read a study once that said most errors happen in the first five minutes of a shift.