med pass

Hayssarah09 · Mar 6, 2014

Where the heck do you guys work that you have 42 and 25 patients!? I am only in nursing school in FL so I don't know the laws and regulations but that is nuts. Do you have a lot of other duties besides medication pass? That just does not seem right to have such a huge patient load.

chillin4me · Mar 8, 2014

LTC, i still have to do some treatments, basically i need to do everything, but CNA does the peri care.. I don't have any idea either if it is still legal patient load

VANurse2010 · Mar 8, 2014

Why are you all checking BPs on LTC residents during med pass? They should be getting weekly BPs once stable on a regimen. You're creating work for yourself.

VANurse2010 · Mar 8, 2014

Where the heck do you guys work that you have 42 and 25 patients!? I am only in nursing school in FL so I don't know the laws and regulations but that is nuts. Do you have a lot of other duties besides medication pass? That just does not seem right to have such a huge patient load.

25 is a pretty typical LTC ratio. Bear in mind that for most residents you're not doing assessments every shift or even every day.

CaringGerinurse525 · Mar 8, 2014

Why are you all checking BPs on LTC residents during med pass? They should be getting weekly BPs once stable on a regimen. You're creating work for yourself.

Some of our residents bp meds have parameters on whether or not to hold the med so we must take the bp prior to administering. I have one resident on Clonidine. Her Clonidine is to be held if her systolic is less than 95 (which it sometimes is).

I work 2nd shift and our med times are pm and HS. I have 25 residents as well. I can sometimes get the pm med pass done in 1-1/2-2 hours. Other times it can take longer, depending on other circumstances. I have worked that hall for a year though so I am very familiar with the residents and their meds. I always look at the mar while I pop them but knowing their usual meds helps me notice something out of the ordinary.

I also only have one resident on accu-checks and one resident that I need to get a BP on. Also about half of my residents are able to take their meds whole which saves time.

ClearBlueOctoberSky · Mar 8, 2014

Why are you all checking BPs on LTC residents during med pass? They should be getting weekly BPs once stable on a regimen. You're creating work for yourself.

That would be ideal, however, when you mix corporate and rigid docs, sometimes it us difficult to get those orders changed. Usually, with our skilled, we'll get parameters. With long term admits, I don't even ask, but when I come back later, there they are.

VANurse2010 · Mar 9, 2014

My beef with the whole parameter system, even (or especially) with skilled people, is that the expectation is that they will eventually be discharged. They need to be on a regimen that's stable because they are NOT going to be checking themselves everyday (of course there are exceptions, but let's keep it real). Constant VS checks on LTC residents are inappropriate. Where's the unit manager and ADON/DON advocating with the doctors?

ClearBlueOctoberSky · Mar 9, 2014

I agree VAN, but it's still a lot of "it could".

I just got off the night shift in our secured unit, after not working there for a while and I will say it is better. We check VS every week anyways as part of our combined Med B and skin charting. So it isn't like they are not being checked at all.

Hibbzem17 · Mar 10, 2014

I Have 32 residents. If I'm doing the 7 am pour which is the heaviest, it takes me from 545 to 705 to pour. Til 730 to pass all of the meds. If it's noon it only takes me 35-50 minutes to pour.

BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN · Mar 10, 2014

I work on the rehab side of a SNF, at least half of our residents require daily vitals for Med A purposes.

Why are you all checking BPs on LTC residents during med pass? They should be getting weekly BPs once stable on a regimen. You're creating work for yourself.

chillin4me · Mar 11, 2014

We get BP it pt receiving HTN meds, sometimes doctors order specifically for it