Narcotic Counts

[harry1814]

I am new to Assisted Living Home Care, I am seeing something that I am not comfortable with. PCA's pass the medications including narcotics and do not sign them out of a narcotic book. The narcotics are stored in the residents room in a locked box. The problem with that is all of the PCA's have the same key. So anybody could go into the room and take a medication. What is the procedure in other AL on nacricotic counts and storage?

[Whispera, MSN, RN]

Are they medication assistants? Might they sign things out somewhere else than where you see them working?

[Black Jade, BSN, RN]

Have you mentioned this to your supervisor and the problems it could lead?

[tyvin, BSN, RN]

It looks like you might have to trust each other ... imagine.

[DPRN]

My med techs (nurses aides with medication admininstration training) pass medications including narcotics. The narcotics are kept double locked in the med cart and each narcotic is signed out at time of use. Narcotic count is done with shift changes.

[merlee]

How are your narcotics counted? That's where this starts and ends.