pyxis narcotics count

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in Med/Surg, ICU, mostly ER.

My apologies if this has been discussed before...I couldn't find it anywhere. Does everyone count ALL the narcotics in the Pyxis every day? Our night supervisor is tied up from 3 to 4 hours every night counting the narcs in the Pyxis carts on the floors. It seems to me that the only ones that should need to be counted are the ones that have been accessed in the last 24 hours. Thoughts? Legal advice? I can't find anything on our BON site or in our hospital policies. Thanks for your input.

Specializes in Telemetry.

We check for discrepancies every shift, but only do the count of all narcotics once a week.

Specializes in Plastic surgery and Med/surg.
We check for discrepancies every shift, but only do the count of all narcotics once a week.

Same here our omnicell prints out a piece of paper letting us know that there was a discrepancy and every Monday morning we count the narcotics. My only question is why in the world does it take her 3-4 hours to do the count???? It only takes me about 45 minutes at the most to count the narcotics and put it in the computer.

Specializes in ER/PDN.

At the Level I hospital I came from, discrepencies are checked every shift and count is done on Wednesdays. My current hosital, pyxis count is done daily on night shift.

Specializes in LTC/Rehab,Med/Surg, OB/GYN, Ortho, Neuro.

One place I worked at, we never counted the narcs in the pyxis. Just checked for discrepencies every shift. Another place, the pyxis chose random narcs (usually 3-5 different meds) for us to count every shift.

Specializes in Critical Care, Capacity/Bed Management.

At one facility I work at narcotic count must be done by every shift. Does not take long maybe 15 or 20 minutes.

At the other it is done once a week

Same here our omnicell prints out a piece of paper letting us know that there was a discrepancy and every Monday morning we count the narcotics. My only question is why in the world does it take her 3-4 hours to do the count???? It only takes me about 45 minutes at the most to count the narcotics and put it in the computer.

i would think that the sup is doing ALL the pyxis in the "house"

Specializes in Med/Surg, ICU, mostly ER.

I should have clarified... Sup is helping staff to count ALL the Pyxis carts in the house and there are between 40 to 50 narcs in each one. The doors flip open, then there's a 5 to 7 second pause before anything comes up on the screen, so it takes FOREVER to count each one.

Specializes in Medical Surgical.

We count twice a day, has to be oncoming and offgoing shifts. I also hate the 5 second pause every time a new little slot opens up. Takes about 20 minutes when everyone is already exhausted or trying to get oriented.

Specializes in Med/Surg.

We have never, to my knowledge, counted the narcs in the pyxis. The pyxis keeps up with the count. When they are replenished by the pharmacy they count them to make sure what is supposed to be there is there. I think they do that daily. We, nurses, don't count anything :nurse:

Specializes in Gyn Onc, OB, L&D, HH/Hospice/Palliative.

We have never counted narcs from the pyxis...

All narcs counted, every day, q shift.

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