OneMurse

I have spoke to all other nurses who had worked or is working at my station and found out that NO ONE is able to finish the morning meds on time. Not surprised at all. What interests me right now is that I remember reading something on the California staffing regulation, and it say something about "facilities should employ sufficient amount of staff to ensure quality resident care." So if not a single nurse is able to give meds on time, that couldn't mean that all these nurses are under-performed, but meaning this facility is clearly understaffed and violates that regulation. Maybe I should file something to the DHS.

Update: It's been 4 months since I started to work at this SNF and it's still humanly impossible to finish all meds within the "correct" time frame. At this point I sincerely believe SNFs have nothing to do with patient care. For god's sake I have to bring in my own blood pressure cuffs because the ones in the facility can't even be inflated. I told the central supply to order some new ones and it took them almost TWO MONTHS to get that done due to "budget problem." Oh well, I guess it's about time to start job hunt again.

Situation: I'm working in a skilled nursing facility and the unit/station I'm in charge of has 39 residents. For AM shifts, all 39 residents have scheduled medications due at 9am. We are using electronic medical records so we are allow to give medication from 8am to 10am, all medication given after 10am will be considered as late. Problem: the management kept on reminding me that I need to pick up my speed, they don't want my med pass to be late. So am I lacking a certain skill or is there something essential that I didn't learn from nursing school? If anyone actually bother to do this simple math, to get through 39 patients in 2 hours that's 3 minutes per patient. THREE MINUTES PER PATIENT. Each patient has an average of 8+ medications need to be given. On top of that, 2/3 of the patients requires BP and/or apical pulse check before med administration. Furthermore, because it's a SNF, we get mostly geriatric patients, so these patients need time to take their medication. So yea, if any of you are working or has worked at a SNF with similar situation, I will really appreciate it if you could share your experience on how to handle this.