medication administration at correctional facility

[alegea23]

Does anyone work at a prison, jail, or detention center??? For any nurses who do work in such a setting... what are the laws about medication administration? I'm specifically inquiring if it is within a LPN's scope of practice to take medications in a locked box outside of the clinic and to another destination(prisoners room) and dispense the medication to the prisoner in his cell/destination/room or whatever the case may be that the prisoner is residing?? They are thinking about having the nurses where I work take meds to 2 specific buildings. The reason being is that these 2 buildings hold the "out of control" youth from the facility and they think it's not safe to have them come to the clinic. The doctor has agreed to go along with this since it's a special circumstance. So I am sure it's okay, but I am still curious. I know you would have to have the MAR with you as well as a locked box.

Thanks in advance for anyone who has some input on this.

[theres2u]

I worked at a correctional facility for 15 years and we took the meds to the inmates at their cells everyday. Now I do know that there is a difference between pre-sentenced facilities and post-sentenced facilities. Is your facility a prison or a jail? My facility was a jail, which is pre-sentenced, and supposedly there are stricter guidelines on these things. Hope this helps. Good Luck!

[uraqt2]

i've worked at a men's max for 8 yrs now and we have always delivered our meds out on the units. since we are max there is very little movement. i've never heard that there is any problem with delivering medications out on a unit.

[MadisonsMomRN, BSN, RN]

I work in a jail and a prison and meds are taken to the inmates all the time. At the prison, some come up for pill call. The ones that are in segregation, the meds are taken to them.

I think its a pretty common practice. Some inmates are just too dangerous to take out of the cell!

[hippie4life]

It really depends on your state as to what the rules for medication administration are. Here in Idaho the Board of Nursing controls the rules and how it is done. They don't get involved too much with the prison stuff but it has to be within the administrative rules. Here the meds are pulled and the small pill envelopes labeled as if it was a mini mar. Name, #, med, dose and route must be on there. Only the nurse who pulled them can give tem and the MAR is filled out when the nurse returns, after the inmate has taken the meds. When they are pulled we use the dot system to show which ones were pulled and placed in the envelopes. Envelopes for recurring meds are replaced each week and there is a separte envelope for each dose and time it is to be given.

[humglum, BSN, RN]

I don't understand why administering medications would be outside of your scope of practice. At my facility the inmates in general population come up to pill call (and only for those medications that aren't KOP - keep on person) and the RN (lucky me) is responsible for doing medical rounds and pill call in the segregation units.