Monster Med Passes

Nurses General Nursing

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What's the largest number of patients you have passed meds on in a shift.

I recently took a break from ICU and took a foray into Corrections. They do 8 hour shifts. I'm the sole nurse on evening shift in their behavioral house (tons of psych meds). The house has 4 wings. The way it's set up, you have to -pre-pull meds for each patient in the med room and hand carry them up to the wings to pass them. Last night I pulled and passed meds on 125 patients (including diabetics).

What's your record?

When I read the title of this thread I was like "Corrections!"

We had clinical rotations at a prison last semester. Two nurses passing meds (A-M and N-Z by last name). But we had windows with bars in the inmates would come up to them. I don't know how many there were but it took three or four hours. I was gently and politely asked to step aside for a bit by the nurses that work there when my line started to go way the hell around the corner. They would pass meds faster than me and then I would take over again when the line wasn't so bad.

Corrections nursing would be pretty interesting and I am seriously considering it as my first job but I would really need to be able to up my game and pass meds faster because I am slow as hell and terrified of making Med errors.

P.s. that prison Med pass was still done much faster than I have seen in long-term care facilities that I have worked at. Frequently the nurse starts to pass meds in a long-term care facility and by the time she has finished people are already lining up for their next set of meds.

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Specializes in Dialysis.
7 hours ago, Ms_Interpret said:

It says "keep on rolling" not "keep eye rolling."

Oh my, I need to not read when tired ?

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I also had upwards of 100 during my med passes in prison. Tricia J gave a great summary of how it goes. I want to add that theres no time wasted talking to complaining families and fetching drinks. If an inmate had a complaint, i marked it down and moved onto the next guy. No long conversations. I did meds, injections, a methadone program and insulin during my pass. We had solitary and super max also, so those guys had to be seen individually. My med pass was about 3-4 hours, but still better than my brief time in ltc. If there was a lockdown or cell move, med pass could take 5 to 6 hours.

Put it this way: Ispent much longer in prison than in ltc, and those guys could literally have seriously hurt me at any time. Still better than ltc for me.

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3 hours ago, Luchador said:

When I read the title of this thread I was like "Corrections!"

We had clinical rotations at a prison last semester. Two nurses passing meds (A-M and N-Z by last name). But we had windows with bars in the inmates would come up to them. I don't know how many there were but it took three or four hours. I was gently and politely asked to step aside for a bit by the nurses that work there when my line started to go way the hell around the corner. They would pass meds faster than me and then I would take over again when the line wasn't so bad.

Corrections nursing would be pretty interesting and I am seriously considering it as my first job but I would really need to be able to up my game and pass meds faster because I am slow as hell and terrified of making Med errors.

P.s. that prison Med pass was still done much faster than I have seen in long-term care facilities that I have worked at. Frequently the nurse starts to pass meds in a long-term care facility and by the time she has finished people are already lining up for their next set of meds.

Having worked in Med/Surg, ICU, and Skilled hospital units myself, I will say that after these Corrections med passes, hospital med passes feel like a leisurely stroll through the unit. The only thing I can narrowly equate it to was when I was a teenager working fast food on the food line during a meal rush. The med pass window is a little more lax in Corrections, in that we are given more time before and after due time, but we have our own time constraints to worry about too. Namely, inmate count. If you don't get your med pass done before they lock everyone down for count, you have to wait sometimes 1.5-2 hours until count/recount is complete before you can resume your med pass.

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Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
3 hours ago, Luchador said:

P.s. that prison Med pass was still done much faster than I have seen in long-term care facilities that I have worked at. Frequently the nurse starts to pass meds in a long-term care facility and by the time she has finished people are already lining up for their next set of meds.

In all fairness to the LTC nurse, likely each person has more pills on average than most inmates. There are also blood sugars, injectables, PEGs and NGTs incorporated into LTC med pass. Probably a lot more interruptions. Corrections med passes are a lot more streamlined and better able to be kept on track.

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11 hours ago, TriciaJ said:

In all fairness to the LTC nurse, likely each person has more pills on average than most inmates. There are also blood sugars, injectables, PEGs and NGTs incorporated into LTC med pass. Probably a lot more interruptions. Corrections med passes are a lot more streamlined and better able to be kept on track.

I hope I didn't sound like I was putting down nurses that work in a long-term care facility. From what I have seen they have a horrible ratio of patients and lots of interruptions when they are passing meds.

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On 7/16/2019 at 8:47 AM, Ms_Interpret said:

Corrections is a little different from Med/Surg or hospital nursing. I don't do assessments on these patients unless the patient is newly locked down or there is a medical emergency. They aren't infirm. I pass these meds because it is a safety and security issue for them to keep and take their meds themselves. And it's not a corporate facility. It's a prison. It's a state facility.

Many prisons outsource. Here in Illinois Stateville outsources to Wexford Health. You're not a state employee.

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Specializes in Transitional Nursing.

52, but thats in LTC.

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Specializes in SCRN.

50 in LTC.

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