Communicating blood glucose results

PLEASE NOTE:   Posts made to this forum should not be considered as the expressed opinions of, nor should be considered endorsed by, the Medication Safety Officer’s Society (MSOS) or the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP). 

Make sure your email is up-to-date
In order to continue to receive updates from MSOS, as well as forum posts and other valuable information as a member of MSOS, please be sure to update your email address with us, whenever it changes. If you need assistance doing so, please send an email to jgold@ismp.org

1 post / 0 new
Dan Sheridan
Dan Sheridan's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 days 15 hours ago
Joined: 10/20/2015 - 23:07
Communicating blood glucose results

I'm interesting in knowing what strategies you have in place for safely communicating blood glucose readings from patient care assistants to nurses. I've seen cases where patient A has been treated for patient B's blood glucose level, and even cases where a patient has been treated for a blood glucose level that was actually a room number.

Given human nature, how do you stop someone from telling a nurse "213's blood sugar was 308"? Or from jotting down the blood glucose readings for 8 patients on a piece of paper, and then transposing numbers when entering them in the computer?