What do you all do with your plastic inhaler canister holders when you give a one time dose to an inmate?
We were cleaning them in a bleach solution and reusing them. Suddenly we are changing this. We will now throw the plastic part away and send the inhaler (the metal part that holds the medicine) back to the Pharmacy. The manufacturer will not sell the plastic holders, so basically the inhaler is useless. So we are essentially throwing away the entire inhaler after one use. Personally I think it is ridiculous overkill. Bleach kills germs. They are probably cleaner than when they came out of the brand new box after cleaning them with bleach! Keep in mind that when you go to a restaurant, the dishes that you are eating off of were used by another person and were only cleaned in soap and water. Not even bleach!
I feel that this is germ-phobic overkill. The cost to the taxpayers is unnecessary. Did you guys know that they clean colonoscopy equipment in a bleach-like solution and then use them again on another patient??? Something that was in someone else's rear-end! And this is an accepted practice. But we are choosing to throw away inhalers because someone else put their mouth on it once, for a second, and bleach isn't good enough. The mouth is a clean area, not sterile. We learned that in nursing school. What do you guys think? And please tell me what you do when you give a one time dose to a patient.
I can understand wanting to save taxpayers dollars; however, the fact still remains that you should not be reusing MDI's. I suggest that the policy needs to be changed (easier said than done I know) to inmates being allowed to have their meds KOP. At my institution we allow inmates to have their inhalers KOPd and when we issue a new one they MUST return the old one. When the inmates are transported whether in-house, in-state, or even to court the inmates are instructed to put their inhaler in their pocket so that they have access to it. Custody is also notified that the inmate has an order for the inhaler and may need to use it. I have never experienced a problem with this procedure and hope you find a solution to your problem.
We use cardboard spacers for our inhalers. After each use you throw away the spacer. I dont know how much the box of spacers cost. We have recently started to cut the spacers in half to double the amount because we use so many.
That's a great idea, the cardboard spacers. See? These are the kinds of responses I was looking for!!! I must say we were getting a bit off track with some of the other responses, although I do understand they were just trying to figure out our system.
uraqt2
68 Posts
I can understand wanting to save taxpayers dollars; however, the fact still remains that you should not be reusing MDI's. I suggest that the policy needs to be changed (easier said than done I know) to inmates being allowed to have their meds KOP. At my institution we allow inmates to have their inhalers KOPd and when we issue a new one they MUST return the old one. When the inmates are transported whether in-house, in-state, or even to court the inmates are instructed to put their inhaler in their pocket so that they have access to it. Custody is also notified that the inmate has an order for the inhaler and may need to use it. I have never experienced a problem with this procedure and hope you find a solution to your problem.