Khaos RN

I agree that we should all be keeping the med carts clean and not only when state is ready to walk in. Now the emphasis has shifted from the med carts to a facility acquired pressure ulcer. The state surveyors are all over this pressure ulcer and rightfully so. There are so many other things more important than a med cart! Sometimes I don't think our management see's the big picture.

This sounds just like my facility! We have a nurse on the evening shift that gets so behind on her one hall that when I walk in it's crazy. People are still up at 10:30, medications have not been passed, blood glucose not even done yet, so insulin is behind too. We also run out of narcotics and no one has sent the script to the doctor, yet night shift is left to do all this. It's like day and evening shift don't pass any narcotics? I spend a lot of time going through new orders and making sure everything is correct. I correct those errors myself and I have found it's not any use to make the DON aware that these mistakes are being made because no one seems to care. Perhaps the DON needs to have an in-service so that everyone is on the same page? Communication is so vital, but sometimes overlooked. Long term care is tough. Everyone has to work together, but I find that it's every nurse for themselves in my facility.

The DON has decided she will have an in-service so that we will all know what to expect next time the surveyors come in. It should be an ongoing process, not a rush job to prepare the facility. Of course everything is dumped on night shift. You are correct that every shift should be responsible for the med carts and treatment carts. I am constantly dumping trash from the treatment cart from the day and evening shift, restocking the med cart, and cleaning up someone else's mess. To me it's just common courtesy to clean up after yourself.

so, the state surveyors are supposed to visit our long term care facility any day now. So, night shift has been assigned by the DON to clean the med carts. Throw out anything and everything that's dated 30 days or more, or not dated. Well, that pretty much means throw out every single OTC medication in the cart, all liquid medications and some eye drops, etc. Then go to the med room and replace all medications that were thrown out. This has been a nightmare going through a whole med cart, actually I have two to clean. The med cart has to be cleaned top to bottom. I guess no other nurses on days or evenings use the med carts because only nights has been told to do the cleaning and then the next day the cart has more junk, more liquid medication messes because certain nurses don't know how to clean a sticky liquid off the bottle! I have 40+ residents at night and I guess the DON thinks I don't do anything on the night shift! Anyone else see a facility go insane at State Survey time?