Is your central supply room locked on the 11-7 shift?

[Blackcat99]

I work different shifts at my LTC. The nurses on night shift use to always get the med carts stocked up with supplies for the day. Now management has taken the key away from the night shift. So now when we come to work in the mornings-no water cups, no medication cups and no supplies nothing. I was just curious if other LTC's refuse to allow night shift access to central supply? How do you think you would feel if you could not get into central supply on the 11-7 shift?

[xoemmylouox, ASN, RN]

How frustrating. Do you have a supervisor with keys in your building during that shift? If not how is that fair to your residents??

[pinkiepieRN]

All nurses in our facility have the pass-code to central supplies. There's 4 floor nurses. As the supervisor, I have the master key for most of the doors and med rooms in the building.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

I'm sure much of the attitude was the floor staff's frustration at this extra step just to get what they need to do their flippin' jobs. Add to that the frustration of management treating all the staff like thieves. I can see the frustration from both ends.

It is not that they are thieves per say but nurses are busy and they don't sign out and charge for the items. They remove things and think...I'll charge for it later and they never do. They will take more than necessary and not use it all. These things cost money and if not directly chargeable to the patient someone still has to pay for it....like the floors budget you just can't grab a limitless amount of supplies. I know of nurses that would take boxes of band aids, chux for their dogs or bed wetting kids, an ace wrap for home, a few disposable ice bags for their kids team...this adds up and it expensive

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

I'm sure much of the attitude was the floor staff's frustration at this extra step just to get what they need to do their flippin' jobs. Add to that the frustration of management treating all the staff like thieves. I can see the frustration from both ends.

It is not that they are thieves per say but nurses are busy and they don't sign out and charge for the items. They remove things and think...I'll charge for it later and they never do. They will take more than necessary and not use it all. These things cost money and if not directly chargeable to the patient someone still has to pay for it....like the floors budget you just can't grab a limitless amount of supplies.

I know of nurses that would take boxes of band aids, chux for their dogs or bed wetting kids, an ace wrap for home, a few disposable ice bags for their kids team, coffee cups for a party...I've seen it all and this adds up and it expensive.

As supervisor I had the keys and would spend an inordinate amount of time running for all kinds of things....most of which could have been head off if the nurse planned their shifts. If yo have a patient that is using a ton of chux...call for them for the patient for their room BEFORE central leaves. If you see them running low or use the last one CALL central BEFORE they leave. Check if you the TED sequential device BEFORE 2 AM! especially if they got back from the OR at 2PM.

Planning and organization helps.

[morte, LPN, LVN]

throw it back on second shift, they need to make sure that all supplies are "refreshed" before the person with the key gets to leave.

[BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN]

That's sad that the trust level is so low, even lower that nurses ARE perhaps stealing with necessitated the need for taking away the key. My facility has implemented these little "mini meetings" for different shifts/departments. The facility director and HR were leading the last one I went to. I mentioned how night shift doesn't have access to extra paper towels or bleach wipes b/c these are locked away in housekeeping. I made the argument that we can be trusted with narcotics, all sorts of needles and "dangerous" things, yet we can't be trusted to be able to put a new container of bleach wipes out? They got the point quickly because there's an entire shelf of wipes in the clean utility and several bundles of paper towels right below those!

They seem to think that staff is taking things out of central supply and taking them home for their own personal use. I don't think so. I think they were taking things out of central supply so they could take care of their residents.

[Blackcat99]

Residents are not getting fresh ice water on night shift because they have no cups. Residents are not being changed because there are not enough wipes and diapers either. Management has been notified of these facts but still no key.

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

Residents are not getting fresh ice water on night shift because they have no cups. Residents are not being changed because there are not enough wipes and diapers either. Management has been notified of these facts but still no key.

Stop notifying management; start making out incident reports, get risk management in on it. There will be a paper trail then. LTC seems to be very sensitive to State visits, they (management) wouldn't like a paper trail on lack of incontinence supplies documented when the State comes to visit.

Maybe there can be a compromise where at least incontinence supplies are provided.

[chrisrn24]

Stop notifying management; start making out incident reports, get risk management in on it. There will be a paper trail then. LTC seems to be very sensitive to State visits, they (management) wouldn't like a paper trail on lack of incontinence supplies documented when the State comes to visit.

Maybe there can be a compromise where at least incontinence supplies are provided.

Good idea!!

[Mandychelle79, ASN, RN]

The nursing home I worked at all patients ( unless pt or family requested otherwise) slept without briefs on ( letting things air out so to speak) and they used cloth bed pads. Wash cloths can be used as wipes in a pinch. I would be employing these techniques vs letting a patient lay in an incontinent episode. As a side note- laundry may start complaining about the uppage in detergent usage and also complain.

[VAgirl247]

I work at a psych hospital. Everyone has a key, but it is locked at all times. But psych is a different area altogether.

[amoLucia]

Places where I've worked always had a separate supply room/closet on each unit. It had a lot of equip but not anywhere like the total contents of the general supply room. Responsibility for stocking the floor's supplies varies from facility to facility.

But supervisor really does need a key. Even with that system in place, I've known supervisors to 'give' the keys over to some staff which DEFEATS the purpose of the key control. So is it any wonder that admin wants to control loss of equip/supplies?

As supervisor, I refuse to be a "go-fer". Unless the item is critical and UN-borrowable, I will restrict my trips to the supply room. The LESS I am in that room, the LESS I can be suspected of anything. But I do leave a note on the 24 hr unit report that supplies were short and need replacements.

As for making out incident reports, they're probably looked upon as "nuisance reports" by admin, and may only make it to 'the round file'.

On a similar note, I find that inaccessibility to the kitchen is another major nuisance.

A major, major issue to be considered is that those areas are inaccessible for fire alarms or for 'lost resident searches' (and yes, pts have been found in those locked rooms).