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Discussion

Medication drawer keys

Hello,

Our facility is looking into what the national standard is for medication drawer keys. Each nurse at our facility carries a key, which is attached to his or her badge. The key does go home with them at night. I am curious if other facilities do the same where each direct care nurse carries a key (if you have a med drawer for each patient) or do you have keys that you sign out that stay in the facility? We are looking to upgrade to a badge system to swipe into the med drawer but are curious if we are following national standards at this time. Also, how does your facility monitor the keys (do they all have a diff number?) (are they the type of key that cannot be copied?). I am not talking about controlled/scheduled medication areas....just the regular bedside or patient room medication or medication supply drawer.

Thanks!

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    When I worked on a MedSurg floor, most of the meds were kept in the computer on wheels thingie.

    There was a drawer for each patient and there was a code to get in. We also had a key to access drawers at the nurses' stations to get to supplies and other meds (the meds were placed by pharmacy techs into these drawers, and then we put them in the computer on wheels...

    if there was something like a antibiotic that didn't need to be refrigerated, it was kept there as well.) Our keys also got us into the med fridge where Zosyn and Lantus were kept. Things like Ativan were in a locked compartment inside of the fridge and the key for that was kept in the Accudose.

    We didn't have our own keys; rather, each "pod" of five rooms had a set and it was passed from shift to shift.

    However, I moved to an ICU in the same department and all meds were kept in the patients' rooms. We were issued a set of keys when we were hired. When I left, though, I was never asked to return them and quite frankly forget where the heck they may be. I vaguely recall them having a code on them. I left more than a year ago and no one's said anything to me about them. I forgot all about this until now, actually...

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    The medications are in a built in drawer in each pts room , the lock takes a code to open. No keys. When we did have a key they never were taken home by any staff.

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    We have a med + supply cart in each patient room. Nurses and other caregivers with a need-to-know are able to access the drawers with a keycode. Otherwise the cart stays locked. All the carts have the same keycode so it's not too hard to remember.

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    • Experts

    We have no keys of any kind. Med carts are log in with a keyboard and med rooms have a key pad.

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