teaching meds

[valene]

calling nursing instructors:

they are starting a new hand held paperless medication scanner at a hospital that i teach in. any suggestions on how you have safely incorporated this into the medication administration of the curriculum. there is no paper med sheet and only a limited number of hand held scanners, all students in the clinical group are able to pass at the same time as each other and some of the staff. would appreciate if this hurdle has been accomplished by others and how you made it work.

[crb613, BSN, RN]

I am not an instructor, but a student. We use this same type of thing in my current clinical site. It is pretty neat, my instructor can print off a list of each pt's meds that we keep w/us for the day. Every pt on the unit is in the scanner, you just look up the pt, it gives you the meds & time due. It will not let you enter/give any med before/after XXX time due. We scan the pt's arm band, before we give the med. It alerts you to dose errors....too low, too high,also checks the med so it's not given twice. On certain meds you have to enter values....insulin, heparin ect.I hope this helps you.

[rhenmag9]

medication scanners are big help, time saving and helps the students for handling medications..

[lynswim]

We use the med scanners at the facility where I do clinicals. I usually try to pass meds with only 2 or 3 students at a time (because we have to get the drugs out of pyxis, scan the drugs, scan the patient....). I try to pass meds as early as possible (within the time limits of hospital policy) so the staff nurse can then have the scanner.

Hope this helps!