Question

To ensure safe practice, the nurse should always double-check the _______, _______, _____ and ______ of the needle, rather than relying on the colors.

Answer 1

Nurses must double-check the size, length, gauge, and type of needles to ensure proper medical procedures, while not solely relying on color coding. This includes verifying procedural details, counts, labeling, and addressing equipment issues.

Step-by-step explanation:

To ensure safe practice, the nurse should always double-check the size, length, gauge, and type of the needle, rather than relying on the colors.

It is critical for ensuring patient safety that nurses verify these attributes aloud with the team. This includes confirming the name of the procedure as recorded, ensuring that the needle, sponge, and instrument counts are complete (or stating if they are not applicable), ensuring that any specimens are correctly labeled with the patient's name, and addressing any equipment issues if present. Additionally, when reading any instrument, accurate measurement necessitates that the instrument is level, and the observer's eye is at the level of the measurement to avoid parallax errors.