Trying to get an idea if this is normal everywhere -
I'm working at a pediatric community health clinic in TX and a bit confused by the fixation here about expiration dates on supplies. It's discussed at this clinic ad nauseam.
Each month we're expected to go through every exam rooms and to check the expiration date on every item in the room. One manager has asked us to write out the (already printed) expiration date in sharpie to each individual alcohol square, which really seems excessive.
This is more of a curiosity than complaint. It's not a big deal. And I fully understand checking expiration dates on medications etc. but this feels like overkill.
Doing my supply check for this month and turns out, the alcohol pads still expire 04/2021, we still have another 4 yrs on the lube and 6 yrs on the gloves, same as we did last month.
I had personally never heard this topic mentioned when I was working in the hospital setting. Asked my group of girl friends who are nurses in different states and various settings and they were equally confused.
Is this expected everywhere? Did I just miss the memo about this topic at previous jobs? Is it a Texas thing? Or maybe it's particular to this clinic and management.
The specific manager quoted the clinic group's policies (~20 clinic locations, ours is one of one of the smaller ones) and sure enough it is actually listed in the standard operating procedures. This surprises me too because we were cited for writing expiration dates on med packages (as instructed to do so). The wholething seems bonkers and glad to know I'm not the only one who thinks so.
The person making this rule was too lazy to take the extra second to look for the expiration date already printed there and decided to make someone else take two extra seconds to write the date in marker....
I am wondering if the manager is inexperienced or has gotten in trouble for some sort of expired materials at some point in her career and is now hyper-focused on it.
Could the staff come up with a better solution to keep up with dates? Maybe a sheet with the item and expiration date printed on it. Each month someone could initial that they reviewed the items. When a new box is opened, the empty box can simple be marked out and the new box and its expiration written in its place. Maybe something like that could work?
This is done at my hospital. We use baggies with dates on them versus dating individual supplies. It was a decision based on Joint recommendations. I’m in Missouri
Nunya, BSN
771 Posts
The person making this rule was too lazy to take the extra second to look for the expiration date already printed there and decided to make someone else take two extra seconds to write the date in marker....