Medication Adm in FL

[Murrphy]

So I know if you are administering meds through a g-tube u crush and administer each separately.

In a nursing home, if they get their meds crushed and added to pudding/applesauce do you have to crush and administer each pill separately?

I don't see that there are orders to crush meds where I work (unless it is a g-tube)?

I don't want to get sited for med errors!

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Would you administer each pill separately if the patient could swallow pills? I don't know about others, but I take all my pills at once. I don't necessarily crush and give everything separately in a patient with a G-tube either.

[chrisrn24]

We typically get an order "okay to cocktail meds" when dealing with g-tubes.

[loriangel14, RN]

I always given them all together, whether it's a tube feed or crushing with pudding.

[BrandonLPN, LPN]

The only place you crush and administer each pill separately is in nursing school and in the imaginary NCLEX-hospital.

As always, though, you should check your facility's policies and procedures.

[FLArn]

And when the state surveyor is following your med pass. (Actually I always gave each Gtube med separately and never gave meds - e.g. Tums, cough syrup - without an order because your patients' or families will rat you out in a heartbeat and never know they've done it) " What do you mean I can't have a Tums? You gave me one yesterday!":facepalm:

[BrandonLPN, LPN]

And when the state surveyor is following your med pass. (Actually I always gave each Gtube med separately and never gave meds - e.g. Tums, cough syrup - without an order because your patients' or families will rat you out in a heartbeat and never know they've done it) " What do you mean I can't have a Tums? You gave me one yesterday!":facepalm:

how do you finish on time, crushing each pill separately? Plus my residents would have a fit if a nurse did that.

I agree that you got to be careful just handing out cough drops or Tums. I'm lucky to work in a facility with generous and liberal standing orders for such things. And they are all indefinite and print out each month on the MAR! So I don't have to go through the horsepoop of writing out a new standing order for each Tylenol or every dose of maalox.

[FLArn]

I never found that it took that much extra time. Also the one time I tried to "save" time by mixing the meds, they congealed into a horrible thick glob in the plastic cup so I had to discard the whole mess and repour the meds; then I had to order replacement doses for all of them. So much for time saved. I don't remember what the meds were since this was very early in my career.

[HeyNurse2014, ASN, RN]

crushing meds... ugg. I always seemed to get one patient who would quiz me on every med, then refuse about half of them. After the first time I had to "waste" a crushed med, I was certain to get the patient to agree to take them before I crushed them.

Yes, it takes more time but less than "wasting" after a refusal.