Brunner & Suddarth's Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing 13th Edition by Kerry Cheever, Janice Hinkle

Exercise 3

You are assigned to care for an 80-year-old man admitted to the hospitalyesterday with acute coronary syndrome who had an emergent percutaneouscoronary intervention with a stent placement.When you walk into his room, hestates, "That last nurse gave me a medication I don't think I was supposed to have.She told me it was metoprolol, but it looked different from the metoprolol I gotyesterday." You note that the patient's heart rate is now 56 beats per minute (bpm),although the previous day it had been between 72 and 88 bpm.According to thepatient's chart, he received the prescribed dose of metoprolol 4 hours ago.Theprescribed dosage of this medication was not changed; it was the same yesterday.What actions should be taken? Should this information be communicated to yoursupervisor? What is the care priority for the patient? What evidence supports or doesnot support disclosure of medication administration errors to patients? What stepswould you take and in what order?