Nicotine Patch Handling - Psych

Specialties Psychiatric

Published

To set the scene our unit uses paper MARs and does not have any kind of scanning system or electronic record of medication administration.

Evidently, we sign out nicotine patches the same as our controlled substances. I was curious if this was a common practice, if nicotine products typically have additional restrictions or if there are additional laws regarding the administration of these products.

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Specializes in Psych, Case Management, Care Coordination.

We use Pyxis and I can say that we do not count our nicotine patches during med pass, narc count, nor do we need to have a witness to “waste” (dispose of) the patch.

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If I had to guess I would say you count them because in the past many boxes came up missing. Prob nurses who cant get smoke breaks. 

And if you have to witness disposal I'm guessing it is because some nurses haven't been removing them as ordered and they are being passed around by patients. 

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