General med times- am, noon, pm, hs

Nurses General Nursing

Published

True- there is a veterans home that has no specific time for medication passes, other than am (0559 to 1159), noon (1200 to 1459), pm (1500 to 1759) and hs (1800 to 2200). 200 residents. Ambulatory to total care patients.

Is this a new trend? Anyone else heard of it?

Never heard of this anywhere. Don't know if I like the idea, although I could see an advantage to it. No one could ever accuse you of missing your med pass time frame.

The only one of those we use is- HS. Some residents go to sleep very early, or late so this is to accomadate them without waking them.

Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.

We have standard med pass times, with a two hour window. For example, for a med scheduled at 8pm, you have from 7pm-9pm to pass it and still be within the window.

Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.

We also have standard med pass times with a 2 hour window but we will attempt to customize our resident's order's to their preferences.The DOH has stated that LTC is the resident's HOME and they should be permitted to take their meds whenever they wish-NOT practical when you have 20 or 30 residents to pass meds to.We make an effort to work around any activities they would like to attend and will hold or admin many meds early or late to suit them.

I think it's great. So many nurses stress about a daily or twice daily med so they can fit it into an arbitrary window that pharmacy made up. With most meds, it really doesn't matter if someone takes it at 0800 (the time pharmacy put on the MAR) or at 0901 (eek! It's outside the window!!!)

Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

I think it is great, if it's doable. I work mother/baby so it may be a bit different than a lot of floors/facilities....but if a patient wants her Colace, or her Zoloft, or whatever at 2000, or 2230, versus 2100 that is fine w/ me and I just document it as such. There are some meds that it's more important to get *rightontime* but most of the ones we are giving, it's really not a huge deal.

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