What medication system do you use?

[ns lpn]

I was just wondering what kind of medication systems are being used and what are their pro's and con's.

At my LTC facility we use blister packed meds on rungs divided by halls and times of day so at 0700 you would take all the rungs labeled 0700 for all the halls you are responsible for. The MAR sheets come from pharmacy and two nurses are responsible to sign them after checking for and fixing any mistakes before they are used this also includes sending a list of the mistakes on the MARs to the pharmacy so that hopefully next month they are better.

[CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN]

Each hall has a med cart. Each shift has a section or drawer. We use blister packs that have space for 31 pills. Each med has its own card and each pts gets a card. (no sharing) If something is ordered BID..then we have two cards. We separarte the cards in order of rooms and beds.

Every month pharm comes in to do a cycle change. OTC come in bottles and we label them. I think it is up to 10 pts that can share a bottle.

Mars and Tars are pre printed from pharm and every month 2 nurses check those and the re order or recap sheets.

[banditrn]

The facility that I just left had the cassettes that were changed weekly, but the facility that I'm going to has the bubble pac's that are changed monthly.

I've only oriented one nite so far, but the gal told me they hate the bubble pacs. I don't know, haven't gotten into it myself yet.

[marjoriemac, LPN]

I have used the blister packs containing all medication for a particular time of day which was a pain if you had to withold something as you had to identify it first. I used blister packs where each drug had its own pack but they were all organised into times of day which was okay but thought it was too easy for staff to get complacent and it was sore on the fingers! I like the conventional but old fashioned taking meds out a box or pill bottle. It ensures people check the drugs and its easy to replace or discard of medicines.