ABC or 123

[Inquisitive one]

Are your resident/patient charts, MAR,TAR, and medication carts arranged by room number or in alphabetical order? Which way is more efficient and safest. Would your facility allow them to be one way on one unit/floor and another way on another unit or do things need to be consistent throughout the facility. Do MD's prefer charts by room number or in ABC order? If a change was being considered would the floor nurses have input? I'm addressing this to LTC/Subacute facilities. Thanks

[jill48, ASN, RN]

Everywhere I have ever worked it they have been in order of their room numbers. I like it that way and I think it works very well.

[meownsmile, BSN, RN]

In a facility they absolutely need to be arranged by room and bed number. What if you have 2 Bob/Robert Smiths on the floor. Not impossible even in a small hopsital.

[joyflnoyz, LPN]

MARS, TARS, and charts are room number and bed

(A or B) For some strange reason the narc sign out sheets are alphabetical

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

I've worked in 5 different SNF's and a large hospital. ALL the MARs and TARs were listed by room number. I can't imagine it working any other way.

[santhony44, MSN, RN, NP]

Room number! Every place I've ever been has arranged things that way. Alphabetizing would probably mess things up worse than that poor guy in the Visa commercial paying with cash!

I did work on one small unit where everyone was not that careful to arrage the charts in order. It drove me batty. The first thing I did every time I worked was to be sure that I'd put them in order (after I wrote on the wrong chart a couple of times).

[TiggerBelly]

Room number

[Rizpah]

Room number - doctor depends on that too for dictation after monthly rounds.

[LadyLurker]

just to throw a different opinion into this... we've always done it alphabetically at my retirement home.

and it works for us.

we just move bins around in the med cart when needed, and if we have residents with similar or the same names, we highlight each resident's mar, tar and bin ID with different colours. ie: don juan's mars, tars and bin ID would be highlighted with green, and ron juan's would be highlighted with pink.

come to think of it, we use highlighters alot.

karen

ladylurker

[jetscreamer101]

We use room # order for MARS, but use alphabetical for TARS.

For meds, they are in the order that they arei n in the MAR book, the refills down below however are alphabetical.

[flashpoint]

For MARs, TARs, and the med cart, they are arranged by room number...it makes sense becasue we give a majority of the meds in the resident's rooms. The narc sign out sheets are in random order according to when the prescriptions were delivered from pharmacy...it drives me crazy and as soon as I am done with orientation, I am going to buy the alphabetic page dividers and rearrange the book and narcotic bin. :)

[LadyLurker]

the majority of our meds are given in the dining room or adjacent lounge, so working alphabetically is much easier, especially for new staff.

our individual narcotic sign-out sheets are with each residents' mar, in a plastic page protector. we just pull 'em out, sign 'em, stick 'em back in there.

and the narc bin has the cards arranged alphabetically, unless new narc orders arrive... then we just put up with it until we need to make out a new sheet, and it's all moved to alphabetical again.

and yes, we do actual counts, written on paper. and we have narc keys. ;-)

no new fangled techie stuff for us. LOL!

karen

ladylurker