Pxyis Medication Administration

[Deb Howe]

I am an RN and work in a rural 72-bed acute care facility. Presently, we use the cart system to administer routine medications and the pyxis medistation for PRN'S and STAT orders. We will be implimenting the use of the pyxis for all medication administration this Fall. I am very concerned about this transition and the efficiency of timely administration. How has this system worked for others?

[explorer]

i have never used this system in an acute setting, but i loved it in an intermediate setting at the va.

i wish we had this system where i work now, counting narcs is a bummer!!

we have the pixus at the va here in kansas city.:rotfl:

[nurseunderwater]

It's an awesome system except....when you go to pull your 9:00 meds and 2 out of 5 are not there and when it malfunctions....like close drawer and it's closed but it's yelling at you anyway.... other than that it's great!

[BeenThereDoneThat74, MSN, RN]

It's an awesome system except....when you go to pull your 9:00 meds and 2 out of 5 are not there and when it malfunctions....like close drawer and it's closed but it's yelling at you anyway.... other than that it's great!

It's good for the 'no narc count' thing, but realize, the meds have to be in there for it to be good. Where I work, the basic floorstock meds are in there, not everything. Our routine meds are still in regular drawers, which is fine. Imagine the nurse line-up at the pyxsis for routine meds! Also, if something is sticking ot of the drawer, it won't open. Not good when you need to get a stat med out.

[gloryjean14]

i love our pixis,we,ve been using it for ~4 yrs now.it's just a matter of getting used to it.the problem is the delay of the pharmacy putting new meds in the profile but fixing drawers and things are a no brainer.

[XRAYGIRL]

Hi, we have been using Pyxis out here in the sticks for at least 6 years and we really like it. It takes a little time to adjust to the change; both for nurses and pharmacy. We also have a supply Pyxis. All our supplies (oxygen tubing, angiocaths, urinals etc) are loaded into it. It works just like the medication Pyxis.:)

[IamRN]

We also have a supply Pyxis. All our supplies (oxygen tubing, angiocaths, urinals etc) are loaded into it. It works just like the medication Pyxis.:)

It is probably really called Omnicell. We have a huge one too and we also tend to call it the "supply pyxis."

[Gompers, BSN, RN]

It is probably really called Omnicell. We have a huge one too and we also tend to call it the "supply pyxis."

We call ours Omni-hell.

[webbiedebbie]

I love the Pyxis! We, however, have to do a narcotic count every Sunday night. But it's a lot better than doing the old count!

[nurs4kids]

We have been using the Pyxis for our narcotics for 8 or 9 years now and I loved it for that, however back in March, we went to it for all of our routine meds also and we still haven't worked out the bugs. As a previous poster stated, our pharmacy has to load the med under the patient's profile before we can access the med. Emergency meds can be over-ridden, but narcotics are not considered emergent. It's most frustrating when a pt returns from surgery and is screaming in pain and you can't access the med to care for your patient. Also frustrating has been when the pyxis is out of the med, the pharmacy has yet to restock it and you have to watch and wait for them to do so. OR when pharmacy overlooks a med, so it isn't listed in the profile and you have to call them to enter it in the system. Then your and your patient are at their mercy. You have to keep checking and rechecking the system until it's in. We only have a 2 hour window to pull the meds at the scheduled med time, so if it's not out in that time frame (which is plenty of time, imo) then you have a documented med error. That's better than the old drawer system where we only had thirty minutes prior to and after the scheduled time..or it was considered an error.

Now, what's this about NOT having to count narcotics d/t pyxis?? We still do an entire narcotic count twice a week and we have to have someone witness if we're wasting and we still have to verify the count with the pyxis EACH time we remove ANY med.

Still, overall it's pretty neat..we're still working out the kinks.

[SCRN1]

I love ours too! We have 3 on our floor. So if one runs out of something, there's 2 more I can go to. We also have 3 Omnicells...and also refer to them as "supply pyxix".

In ours, we mainly have only the narcotics. There is one drawer that keeps meds like Tylenol, Phenergan, Reglan, etc. That drawer, we don't have to count...just click yes without counting. We still have to do narcotic counts each Wednesday on all drawers in addition to counting and answering to the screen each time a med is taken.

All other meds that aren't narcotics and aren't in that non-narcotic drawer are kept in a locked box in the wall outside the patients' rooms.

I love our system and feel that it is much more error safe than using a medication cart.

[allele, LPN]

I work in acute care right now where we use PYXIS for PRNs, STATs and narcs, but we will be switching to it for all medications in the future. My last job used PYXIS for all meds and in the beginning it was a REAL hassle. But eventually we all got our own groove going and got very used to it....to the point of LOVING it! What happened was some nurses would come in early (by their own choice, of course) to pull their meds, some pulled meds while others listened to their tape, some did vitals then pulled their meds, etc. Bottom line was there was pretty much never a line at the PYXIS. Worked out nicely! Good luck with it!

:)

[allele, LPN]

Oh my, looks like I'm the thread killer again! :chuckle