Incorrect waste amount of medication documented in pyxis

[ddrn97]

Hi all. So last night I was wasting a narcotic with another nurse. I was rushing to go through the prompts on the Pyxis. I think I may have accidentally put in th wrong amount of medication that was to be wasted. The patient is to receive .5 mg of dilaudid. Which equals .25 ML that I will administer. Instead of putting 0.5 mg as the dose in the Pyxis I think I put .25 instead. So the incorrect amount was wasted. I told my preceptor which was my witness and she said she thought I put it in right and that it's not really going to be a problem. Has anyone came across this type of issue before?

[JKL33]

Pyxis can easily be queried to answer your question. I would speak to a supervisor to see about putting your mind at ease.

Beyond that - -

"Rushing" in a way that compromises your ability to be conscientious with any aspect of controlled substance administration is never going to be a good idea. You have to be conscientious no matter what.

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

There seems to be a lot of threads recently about narcotic and wastes--missed wastes, incorrect wastes, incorrect disposal, etc.

ABC has changed to CAB. I think we need to made an addition to it, so it becomes CABW. Obviously make sure your pt is alive, safe, etc., but wasting has to be a top priority.

I'm not trying to criticize the OP, but of all the "will I lose my license?" threads that we see on here, incorrectly handling narcotics is something that can jeopardize one's unencumbered license, and, as such, handling narcotics must be given all due attention.

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

First of all, your preceptor is responsible, as you are on orientation.

What you have now learned is... NEVER rush with documenting narcs in the Pyxis. There are many sets of eyes on that. You must be meticulous.

[Daisy4RN]

Agree with others, just check and correct if necessary. You do need to be really careful with the narcotics though. I miss the good old days when nurses were allowed to be human and everything wasn't such a big deal!

[mtmkjr, BSN]

If you were to waste the incorrect amount the Pyxis would alert you of the error, would it not? At the very least you would still have an undocumented waste alert. If you did not see that then everything should be fine.

I've been off for 5 days though, so there's a possibility my brain is not recalling the waste procedure correctly LOL

[mrsboots87]

Does your Pyxis not warn you if an incorrect waste? Ours does, but it's the newer model and I don't remember if our old one did or not. When we type in the east amount, if it doesn't match the expected waste amount, a warning pops up and gives you a chance to retype the waste amount. Which is nice in case a fat finger or something happens.