Duplicate Vitamin D Therapy Administered Due to Failure to Discontinue Prior Order
Penalty
Summary
A deficiency occurred when a resident with diagnoses including a left femur fracture, mild cognitive impairment, urinary tract infection, and vitamin D deficiency received duplicate therapy of vitamin D. The resident was initially prescribed ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) 50,000 units weekly. Following a pharmacy recommendation, the physician accepted a change to cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) 50,000 units weekly, but the original vitamin D2 order was not discontinued. As a result, both vitamin D2 and D3 were administered concurrently throughout June, leading to an excessive total weekly dose of 100,000 units. The duplicate administration was confirmed through review of the medication administration record and pharmacy consultation reports. The DON and ADON acknowledged the error after reviewing the records and confirmed that the duplication was not detected due to a missed step in the double-checking process for physician orders. The facility's policy required thorough medication regimen reviews to prevent such issues, but the process failed to identify and resolve the duplicate therapy in this instance.
Plan Of Correction
The facility will develop a plan to ensure residents receive medications that are appropriate, necessary, and free from duplication. Review of the medical record indicates that Resident #90 has received the ordered dose of Vitamin D3 since July 1, 2024. The DON/designee reviewed the Drug Regime reviews for the month of April 2025. There was no duplicative therapy identified that the physician had not addressed. Physician Orders Policy given to the Nursing Administration Team and charge nurses in house for review, to verify and evaluate our current process. RCA completed by DON and ADON to identify how error occurred. Upon process review, we identified our transcription of orders would improve with redundancy built into the system. The Nursing Administrative Team revised the process to include a double note signature. 1:1 Education on the importance of double noting orders occurred for all charge nurses, neighborhood licensed staff, and nursing administrative team currently in the facility. All other nursing staff not in the building will be educated before or during their next shift. DON and ADON created a Physician Order Policy review with post-test for all licensed staff on Relias with focus on: double noting by licensed staff ensuring no duplicate orders and to identify the same medication under a different name. For those employees who are casual/student status, on vacation, or on LOA, Relias education will be completed before/during their next scheduled shift. To ensure the education and changes implemented are followed, monitoring has been implemented to ensure sustainability of compliance. ADON updated Provider Visitation Log Sheets for DNP and Medical Director to include space to verify the order has been double noted by a licensed staff member. DON/ADON or designee will audit 2 Provider Visitation Log Sheets (that contain up to 22 orders) and 6 Omnicare pharmacy recommendation sheets weekly for one month to ensure order was processed per facility policy to ensure double noting was completed by second licensed staff. Then 1 provider visitation log sheet and 4 Omnicare pharmacy recommendation sheets weekly for one month, then 1 provider visitation log sheet and 2 Omnicare pharmacy recommendations weekly for one month. DON will present a compliance report based on the audit findings to be reviewed during monthly QAPI meetings by the team for 3 months; with recommendations by QAPI for further monitoring if consistent compliance has not been achieved. DON will be responsible for attaining and sustaining overall compliance with this plan of correction.