If you haven't heard-using QD to document every day is DNR (Do Not Use). Medication errors due to transcription errors are as much of a concern in home care as in the hospital. Often the nurse receiving the physician's order is not the clinician seeing the patient. Additionally, the original signed physician's order is in the office file while the clinician performing the medication teaching or administration is in the patient's home, often without a copy of the signed order.

HHN reported Joint Commission changes in the July 2003 HHN Accreditation Strategies column (Friedman, 2003). Whether your agency is accredited or not, best practice would dictate the changes be instituted.

Take steps now to eliminate the use of these dangerous abbreviations and save headaches and potential malpractice suites later. Figure 1 provides a complete list of the dangerous abbreviations and instructs how to change them in documentation policies.

Institute for Safe Medication Practices. Accessed October 25, 2004, from ismp.org/msaarticles/specialissuetable.html or ismp.org/msaarticles/wakeupcall.html. Adapted with permission.

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