A toddler is taken to the emergency room (ER) and the triage nurse tells the parent that the child’s weight is 25 pounds. When t
he nurse enters the data into the computer, she is supposed to convert the weight to kilograms. Twenty-five pounds is about 11.3 kilograms. However, when the triage nurse enters “25” into the computer system, the system assumes it is kilograms and the toddler is now charted at weighing 25 kilograms. Sample error pulled from Team Metric 2013.
The nurse inputted incorrectly the weight of the toddler which was 25 kilograms. The actual weight of the toddler is 25 pounds which should just be 11.3 kilograms. The system can immediately detect the error since it is generally impossible for a newborn child to be 25 kilograms. <span />
