What does prn mean

For many practices, this is the exception, not the norm. Some PRN employees work strictly on-call or as needed when there is a staff shortage or an emergency. Others contract with a facility to work a certain number of hours every week or month.

A PRN employee is paid by the hour, often at a higher rate than a full-time employee on a regular work schedule. However, a PRN worker usually does not have the benefit of medical insurance, vacation time or guarantee of work. PRN work is available in any medical field and in many medical specialties. Houston Chronicle. When you head into the hospital, you expect the doctor treating your injury to always….

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She blogs about nursing, technology, health IT, at other healthcare topics at thenerdynurse. It's hard to plan your life or your budget around PRN work, unless you're the one who decides when and how often to work, but there are also benefits to working PRN.

In the hospital, working "pool" or per diem is often the same as working PRN. Because hospitals can't just close their doors when people call in sick, most have a backup group of nurses, technicians or other ancillary personnel who can be asked to come in when regular staffers take vacations, get sick or can't be reached.

PRN jobs usually require a commitment of a certain number of hours per month -- generally, you won't have trouble getting the hours you need, but you'll have to be flexible -- as well as a certain number of weekend or holiday hours.

As far as literal benefits such as paid time off or sick time, you probably can't expect either when you work PRN. The administration of PRN prescriptions by nurses is based on their knowledge of the drug, as well as their interpretation of the prescription intention. Such discrepancies in perceptions must be rectified in pursuant to the proper treatment of the patient. In the present study, it was also found that the residents and nurses in the medical field experienced greater frequencies of medication errors, compared to those in the surgical field.

This result was contrary to expectations, as it was expected that medical professionals in the surgical field would have experienced a greater number of medication errors due to the greater frequency of PRN prescriptions. As previously mentioned, the experience of fewer medication errors can be attributed to the more meticulous provision of records regarding exact single dosage, maximum number of daily intake, and maximum dosage per day by the medical professionals of the surgical field, compared to those in the medical field.

However, the above cause may also be overdetermined by the fact that the prescription of medications in the medical field requires greater expertise and specialization than that of the surgical field. This can be inferred by the medication regimen commonly used by the two fields in PRN prescriptions, wherein medical residents exhibited a relatively even distribution in their prescriptions of analgesics, antipyretics, insulin, hypnotics, and other medications, whereas surgical residents prescribed a limited range of PRN prescription medications, primarily consisting of analgesics and antipyretics.

Because the proportion of actual administration of medication to the patient given the PRN prescription was not investigated, we cannot conclude that a greater frequency of PRN prescription necessarily leads to a greater frequency in the administration of the prescribed PRN medication. The absence of such investigation reflects a limitation in the present study, in that we could not compare the rate of the actual administration of the PRN prescribed medications among the subgroups of the study participants.

Even though a greater proportion of doctors and nurses in the medical field reported having an experience of medication error than those in the surgical field, the frequency of medication errors experienced by individual residents and nurses is higher in the surgical field than the medical field, such that a medical resident experienced one instance of medication error per 35 patients, whereas a surgical resident experienced one instance of medication error per 11 patients.

Consequently, further studies must be conducted to examine how individuals are associated with medication errors, irrespective of their departmental affiliations. The majority of medical professionals have collectively suggested that PRN prescription is necessary for seamless patient care. However, the lack of protocol in doctor and nursing training and hospital policy, with respect to a detailed education in PRN prescription, has resulted in the execution of PRN prescription primarily based on past experience.

The effective administration of PRN prescriptions should be built on sufficiently shared general knowledge regarding the prescribed medication, exact understanding the patient condition, 13 and an appropriate level of communication between doctors and nurses, as well as patient involvement. The present study has various limitations. First, as the study was based on a survey, the study results were dependent on the memories of the study participants.

As such, participants may have failed to recall memories of medication error or falsely recalled fabricated memories of a medication error. Second, it was difficult to objectively compare and determine whether the participants were in fact behaving in alignment with their responses to the survey.

Third, the present study could not confirm the degree to which PRN prescriptions were actually being administered in practice. Such limitations require revisions and supplementations through future studies.

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Korean J Fam Med. Published online Jul Find articles by Se Hwa Oh. Find articles by Ji Eun Woo. Find articles by Dong Woo Lee.

Find articles by Won Cheol Choi. Find articles by Jong Lull Yoon. Find articles by Mee Young Kim. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Corresponding author. Corresponding Author: Mee Young Kim. Received Aug 24; Accepted Apr This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Abstract Background Pro re nata PRN prescription is a frequently used prescription method in hospitals. Methods From May to July , a survey was conducted among doctors and nurses 88 doctors and nurses working at 5 hospitals located in Seoul, Gyeong-gi, and Gangwon Province.

Results Average number of PRN prescription of surgical residents was 4. Conclusion Standard prescription methods need to be established since there is a perception difference in PRN prescription between doctors and nurses and this could be related to administration errors. Survey The survey sought to investigate the perception and the actual practice of administering PRN prescriptions within the hospital.

Characteristics of the Study Participants Among the ultimately selected study participants, 88 were residents and were nurses. Open in a separate window. Table 2 Actual condition of PRN prescription by doctors.