Do you guys have Pyxis in your hospital?

[lambimari]

The hospital I work at recently started implenting pyxis on all floors. We're using the pyxis to dispense medications. This is suppose to help reduce waiting time for new meds from pharmacy since they'll be on the floors already in our pyxis. Fine. whatever.

I like pyxis. It's user-friendly and fast.

I just HATE that I'm only allowed to take out meds for one patient at a time when I can have up to 7 patient in my shift!

So I basically look like I'm crazy - I go to the pyxis, get 1 patients meds, go to said patient and give meds and do whatever else I have to do...then GO BACK TO pyxis and pull out another patient's meds and go to their room, and so on....I start passing out my 10am meds at 9am and these past two days of working with pyxis, it's been 1130 and I'm still passing out 10am meds!

It's our stupid hospital administration that is behind this latest stupid policy.

Such a complete waste of time!!!!

What is your hospitals policy in regards to pyxis and pulling out meds??? Is it one patient at a time??? Or can you pull out all meds for all patients????

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

Reading this thread made me curious. Do the hospitals you work out use the carpojets sp? for the heparin also? or really in depth syringes for lovanox?

Medwest4me-

I don't know if it is the same all around, but at our hospital a Pyxis is basically like a Medication ATM. LOL It's a big machine and you punch have to scan in, you find the patient, you mark which drug you are pulling, if it is a narcotic you have to count the before and after and it will flag on all kinds of things you have to verify, anyway, when you go withdraw all the meds for a patient, it will one at a time pop open a drawer and tell you what cubby number to pull the med from, or will pop open an individual cubby. It has cut down errors a lot.

To another nurse that mentioned the baggies and asked what other do, the nurses where I work and I put them in a cup. Except for injections, I put all the different pills still in the package in the dixie cup. We don't have the baggies.

[adrienne crunden]

it has to do with inventory control.the bottom line is money. it's to audit the inventory. that's it.

[RNandRRT]

It's easy. The facility I work at, each nurse has a COW. (computer on wheels)

Each cow also has med drawers. At the beginning of the shift you get all the meds for your patients from the pyxis and put them in the med drawers of your COW. As they become due, you pull it out of your patient assigned med drawer and scan your patient and the med and administer.

JCAHO sanctioned because the med drawers are electronically locked.

[NurseHotFlash]

Our policy is to only pull 2 patient's meds at a time. We have double rooms, so pulling "A" bed's meds and "B" bed's meds at the same time makes sense. I use the plastic bags, and label them with the patient's name. Before we pass meds, we scan the patient's arm band, (which is checked against the electronic MAR), then scan the med, then scan the patient again before giving the med. This seems to be a very safe way to ensure you are giving the correct med to the correct patient. I think there has to be a balance between safety and efficiency. Pulling one patient's meds at a time seems to be overkill, especially if you have other systems to check the patient's idenity against the meds given.