Time required for safe med administration

[skrnypa]

I need some help finding research data on the amount of nursing time that is needed to assure safe medication administration.

We are having some issues where I work (in a maximum security prison) about how much time it takes to administer meds.

NO technology is involved here- we get orders on paper, get individual bottles of medicine for each drug with a month supply of pills, hand-write Med Records, and envelopes. We put pills in envelopes and take the envelopes out to the cells to administer them.

In the past 18 months, the number of meds I'm administering has increased 50%. I never get out of work on time. My typical shift is 9.5 to 10 hours (schedule is for 8) and I am having a great deal of trouble getting the "powers that be" to acknowledge the burden of the increased workload. I want to establish a baseline for a reasonable workload that will help both me and my co-workers be able to give meds safely and have the time required to do so.

[Conqueror+, BSN, RN]

Well I have done corrections and its horrid. AT LEAST you guys can prepour. No such luck in nursing homes. I have 30 patients and 90 minutes. That includes "I only take my meds this way" and "Nurse call on 116" and "Nurse the tube in 14 is beeping" and "I wont take my medicine until my wife gets here" (shes been dead for 15 years) etc.. You may not want the computer system because i work with it and it sends a report of your med pass time to admin and they monitor everything. You know who scores well? The nurses who toss out the meds the second the patient looks like they want to refuse. They also don't do eye/ear drops etc... Admin loves them. I don't know if that helped if not Im sorry. I just have a bug about this topic.

[BradleyRN]

In my state you have 1 hour before and 1 hour after the prescribed time to give the meds. It is quite impossible if you work in a nursing home but can be accomplished in a hospital.

[Conqueror+, BSN, RN]

Dont I know it. We have all learned how to "communicate" effectively with the laptops attached to our med carts.

[KarynicaRN]

i feel your pain. in most hospitals and ltc we have an hour window. one hour before and 1 hour after the time of the actual med pass. i heard an adminstrator go off on a nurse who was running 5 minutes past time. with all the phone calls and other patient issues, it's hard to get meds passed in the specified time.

i used to work in a supermax prison. every single medicine including tylenol and tums had to be crushed before taking it up to the pods. it took me forever to pass those meds when i first started working there. after a few weeks i was up to top speed and crushing and preparing medicine cups and would get the med pass right on time. bad thing about the supermax was that every chuckhole door had to opened and closed in order to give the med. the security guard always was with me, but it was a pain in the orifice.

[Zookeeper3]

In our hospital our med pass time just got decreased to 30 minutes before and after scheduled time. In the ICU with 2 patients I'm challenged... with 8 on the floors?? Don't know how they do it. With paper charting you have the "fudge" factor.

Have you looked at time savers like passing 8's and 10's together (assuming none are cardiac meds that now peak at the same time?) Is there another nurse that works opposite you that you can call for pointers and see how their times are? If you're not the only one... than maybe together you can work out a shift overlap or whatever, that will get them safely passed.

How many people are you passing meds to?