Narc counting

[3quarters]

I've been a nurse for 29 years and the facility has had 3 Administrators and now on the 4th D.O.N.in 6 mos., They all have different ideas on how to do things, I'm now told we have been counting the narc's all wrong. Can anyone tell me the correct way to count off the narc's at shift chg..Pease I want to be right in what I'm doing.

[Lahryn04]

At my hospital the oncoming shift will count the actual pills while the leaving shift will compare the numbers on the sheet to make sure the count is correct and write in the corresponding number... We write our shift count in red but the last facility I was at used black, as they said red was too hard to copy... Hope this helps... If you have any more specific questions let me know! Have a good day!

[3quarters]

We have always had the offgoing nurse read from the narc book that we sign out the narc's and the oncoming nurse looks at the count card and either agree or disagree but now they say we have to do it just the other way around and really doesn't make since to me. I really appre. you getting back to me so quickly.

[Lahryn04]

hey no problem! I have never heard of narcs being counted the opposite way your new DON of trying to implement... I'm almost positive I even learned oncoming-count actual pills, leaving-compare numbers on narc sheet, in school... What is your DONs rationale behind this?

[LoveMyBugs, BSN, CNA, RN]

We have always had the offgoing nurse read from the narc book that we sign out the narc's and the oncoming nurse looks at the count card and either agree or disagree but now they say we have to do it just the other way around and really doesn't make since to me. I really appre. you getting back to me so quickly.

That is what we do at my facility

[lovingbnaRN]

It might be because the off going nurse could give you the number he/she KNOWS is in there but not what is counted on the sheet. Did i explain that to make sense?

[IdrilRN, BSN, RN]

The oncoming nurse reads the page number corisponding with the page number written on the "bingo card" then the on coming nurse reads the amount of narcs in the bingo card and the nurse with the book agrees or disagrees.

[jennlpn1975]

At my facility we count the number of cards, bottles and boxes of patches in the box and put that on one sheet. Then the oncoming nurse will stand at the box and look at the cards and the off going nurse reads off the number off the count sheets. The oncoming nurse will verify the # on the sheet AND on the card for every drug. (can you tell we had a problem in the past with drug diversion?) It's tedious but nessesary. Everyone wants to cover their butts.

[Tait, MSN, RN]

We count narcs from the PIXIS every Sunday night. Every place is different!

[Jenni811, RN]

1...2....3....4....5...6...7....8...9...10

All done :)

How the heck do you "count wrong?" This is just some more administration BS. "Your supposed to do narc counts while standing on your head and rubbing your belly. Studies show that when nurses do this it is more accurate"

(p.s. im exaggerating) We actually do narc counts from the pyxis. We have 2 nurses verify. the pyxis tells us what we need to count, we enter in the number and we have a match from the pyxis...we continue to the next count.

[NurseLoveJoy88, ASN, RN]

The offgoing nurse reads the numbers off the narc sheet and the oncoming nurse counts the narcs and either agree or disagree.

If done the opposite way it makes room for error. Say I'm coming on and I say the number the offgoing nurse can easily say uh-um, even though something may be written differently on the sheet.

[Whispera, MSN, RN]

Oncoming should do the actual counting, since she's accepting that the count is correct. This prevents her from being caught with an error the other person might have made (or diverted). It's important for both shifts' nurses to do it together.