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Discussion

Narcotic count

Thanks for reading this and I'll try to make it short. I am working against a wall of nurses at my hospital who have a hard time with the whole concept of counting with one person from each shift.

When I come in at 7 am, one of my co-workers will often say that the night shift nurses need the time that would be taken up by count to finish up and get out on time.

When it is time to leave at 3 pm, one of my co-workers will often say why don't we just count, that will give them time to set things up.

If I come in at 3 pm, often the story is that none of the day shifters have time to count, right now, because they know that more often than not, two 3-11 people will count together.

I have spoken to my nurse manager about this and she is of the same opinion as I am, DUH! it's a federal law!

This happens on the several floors I float to and on all 3 shifts. If it was only one place or one person I would worry about diversion, but this is driving me nuts.

When I say, " I am sorry, but I won't count with you. It's not personal, but federal law says count is with oncoming and offgoing and I would prefer to do it that way.", sometimes I get a look of WTF, sometimes I get an "okaaaay".

I don't mind being a stickler for this, any opinions or alternative suggestions?

Featured Replies

So....your manager should be doing something about this!!!!!

Getting a Pyxis would make your life alot easier.

Pyxis also requires a physical count. Don't see how that makes a difference except that each person's entry is noted.

And "Amen" to the manager taking charge of the problem! :angryfire Too many of us want to do what is convenient instead of following the law/rules, especially those that protect us, for goodness sake.:confused:

Getting a Pyxis would make your life alot easier.
Our hospital finally got one this year. No more counting at end of shift for us either.

You better be documenting this...to CYA! Incident/occurence reporting would do it.

Boy do I hate the narcotic count! We have SO MANY narcs on my unit..but it is done faithfully and correctly every shift. It's the law.

The law is the law. I wonder how many have just signed because the offgoing nurse said, "We already counted, so you can just sign the book" and then a discrepency was found later. It happened at our facility, so I make sure I count with someone going off when I come on duty and visa-versa. It doesn't take up that much time unless you have many, many narcs and then I would especially want to count with someone else. I'd rather be safe than sorry. So has your NM done anything about this at all?

Possibly expect urinalysis in the future if a messup occurs.....

..........and some people getting fired for it!

Our facility uses the "Accudose" system (similar to Pyxis). The count is done once a week. We are an accredited acute-care hospital so I would assume we are in compliance with state/federal regulations.

My thought on this,is that the oncoming shift will be responsible for the narcs for the rest of thier shift. So it should be counted by the person who is going off and the person who is coming on! I count first before getting report,and dont take report until I do count. That was I am confident my count is correct and I wont get blamed for eating pills. :nono:

Same here Denise. The count and keys must be accounted for before report. That is how it's done where counts are done qshift.

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