Dedicated pill crushers/splitters

[sistrmoon]

We are supposed to be moving toward patient dedicated pill crushers/splitters due to allergies/cross contamination. Totally makes sense to me but I wonder how it will play out in practice because I typically have to search the whole unit for either of these items and sometimes still don't find one. Do you have dedicated crushers/splitters. If not, how is it handled?

[Clovery]

The Oncology Nursing Society has standards of practice for this sort of thing, and crushing them outside of a hood is not standard of care. This is an unsafe practice and must not be continued.

https://www.ons.org/practice-resources/clinical-practice/practice-safe-nursing-when-handling-oral-hazardous-drugs

Thank you for this link! The med we crush is listed there. I'm printing this out and bringing it to work tomorrow.

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

Thank you for this link! The med we crush is listed there. I'm printing this out and bringing it to work tomorrow.

This here people!!

I've been on this board for over a decade, and though some of the postings can be frustrating/infuriating, then there is this kind of legitimate valuable dissemination of information. I think it happens pretty often actually!

[sistrmoon, BSN, RN]

Yeah, I'm an Onc nurse and I totally cringed at the idea of y'all crushing a chemo. Oy! I hope you can get that changed.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

Well, I am seriously tired, because when I read the title of this thread (Dedicated pill crushers/splitters), my immediate thought was "what kind of facility is so overstaffed that they can afford to hire people JUST to crush or split pills?"

Then I read the first post.

ROFL....I need some sleep!!

[redhead_NURSE98!, ADN, BSN]

That's what ours are like but they are not patient dedicated. There's like one of each for the whole floor.

Then someone in materials better pull their head out of their patoot and get some for your supply room if they expect to move toward dedicated pill splitters/crushers.

[ICU56]

We use the silent knight with the individual plastic sleeves for crushing. No pill cutters, we have to send any pill that needs to be cut to pharmacy because apparently a 12$/hr tech is more qualified to cut a pill than an RN....

[sistrmoon, BSN, RN]

The silent knight with the sleeves looks awesome. I wonder if it's expensive. I've not seen it at either of the hospitals I've worked.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

I bought my own at CVS. No patient dedicated pill splitter, and none in the med room, either.