
ICU (T)Error Room: Getting it right for our patients
A Medication (T)Error Room has been set up in our Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Northern Hospital Epping to help improve and reduce medication based related incidents to zero.
The room is designed to create a realistic and engaging environment for ICU doctors and nurses where they are invited to identify all the deliberate medication prescription and administration errors in the room, that are commonly seen in the ICU.
Narkitaa Van Ekeren, Nurse Unit Manager, ICU, said the room is tailored to incidents relevant to our ICU over the last 12 months.
“It’s a fantastic initiative, it’s innovative and it is a great opportunity for them to think outside the square,” she said.
“The Medication Special Interest Group (SIG) will provide feedback to all participants on where they have correctly identified all the medication errors and whom the overall winner is.”
The room was first set up in 2019 by our Medication SIG. The (T)Error Room was so successful last year, medication incident went to zero, and the team decided to run the exercise again in 2021.
“Other departments have utilised the idea. The Emergency Department used it last year which was well received ,” Narkitaa said.
“We encourage doctors and nurses to go in. The room is open for them.”
Helen Nicolaci, ICU Senior Critical Nurse and current Medication SIG Nurse Lead, said the (T)Error Room is an education session for staff.
“There are mistakes that have been deliberately made to see if people know how things should be properly set up with a patient so people don’t keep doing it again” she said.
“It’s making sure that patient’s details match what is on the paperwork, or if the patient has an allergy, you check if they have any allergies. It’s purely educational. It’s for everyone to learn. There is a prize for the person who does figure out how many errors there are and there are a significant amount of errors.”
The (T)Error Room is open until the end of May. For details on the (T)Error Room, email Narkitaa: Narkitaa.VanEkeren@nh.org.au
Featured image: Helen Nicolaci, ICU Senior Critical Nurse.


