Specializes in Nursing Education, Public Health, Medical Policy.
Metal bedpans, urinals and emesis basins which were gathered up by the night shift and put in the bed pan hopper in the dirty utility room every day. I also remember burning my fingers more than once taking those things out so we could slip the sterilized ones into a paper cover, pile them on a utility cart and trundle them down the hall to the clean utility room or put them back into the bedside tables in the patient rooms.
Stock meds on every floor. The metal pill trays which had a hole for the pill cup and a slot for the med cards for that pass. It was sort your med cards pulled from the kardex before each scheduled pass by patient name, check them against the kardex, correct the cards if changes had occurred ( and grumble under my breath that the other shift didn't update the cards), go into the med room and pour the meds for each patient and line them up on the pill tray. Take said tray, put it with water, food if necessary, tongue blades and some paper towels and off down the hall to pass the meds. Yes we carried the tray into each room, put the pill cup into the patient hand, gave them some water and watch them take their meds. Repeat until complete. Then chart said meds on the MAR
Using this system I could pass po meds to 25 people in under 45 minutes & the whole prep for said 25 people took me maybe 10-15 minutes max. Using today's system....much slower especially if an automated dispensing system is used.
I agree- passing meds was much easier back in the day. I miss the Kardex
Megan1977, MSN, EdD, RN
105 Posts
I agree- passing meds was much easier back in the day. I miss the Kardex