Suggestions on saving money

[Rainey day]

i'm looking for any suggestions that other correctional nurses have successfully used to save money at work. in today's budget cutting climate, every penny counts. i'm not looking for 'cut the staff' suggestions but maybe ways staff has been moved to help cut down over time costs. any thoughts on staffing levels. ways to cut costs on supplies. if we can't come up with ways to save money, they will be given to us, and it will not necessarily be in our best interests, so any help you can offer, would be appreciated- thanks

[deyo321]

We made a significant change last year to save on medications, a huge portion of our budget. We now primarily use a chain grocery store to provide our meds. So 100 celexa $9.99 vs 30 celexa $81.00. This took some work on nursings part as they are not set up to provide MARS or waste, but they can do bingo cards. So we continued our relationship with our original pharmacy for inspections, wasting narcs, med carts and MARS.

Many stores, Walmart, Target etc offer this savings on medications. They are interested in selling more so they were willing to become providers. In an emergency I can send an officer to get a medication immediately. The store does not always have everything but they can get it next day usually.

So extra work for nursing equaled large savings for county. The savings though is redunculous. The original idea seemed preposterous, NOT use the big pharmcy giant everyone uses and we had for years!?! But it can work.