Nurses employed in any professional capacity indirectly or directly involved in patient care may report reactions. Most institutions, whether acute or long-term care, usually have a specific protocol and procedure for reporting ADEs. Typically, the hospital's risk management department reviews the ADEs that occurred in the institution. Further, the hospital's pharmacy and therapeutics committee is also responsible to review adverse drug event reports. This usually involves what is known as a systems review.
Staff nurses are often the first to identify that a patient has had an adverse drug experience.
Of course, the attending physician should be notified when an ADE occurs. You may want to discuss with nursing management how you should handle documentation or reporting of ADEs in your workplace. In the past 50 years, remarkable medical advances have been made, ranging from antibiotics for infectious diseases to drugs for chronic disorders such as arthritis, hypertension, and diabetes. Today, researchers are striving to make further advances in drugs for disorders such as AIDS and Alzheimer's disease. Clinical research attempts to establish what a new drug or compound will do in the human body.