VA nurses, what time is your largest med pass?

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Hi

I work night shift on a medical unit on a Veterans Affairs hospital. We do not have a 24 hour pharmacy but our largest med pass is on my shift. We usually have to give meds to 12-16 pts. It starts at 5am in order for us to give the 6am meds in time. Many pts have 6-15 meds, many are blood pressure meds some are IV, we also have to take blood sugars and give insulin as needed. And breakfast comes in the end of this times so we usually have to go back to give the insulin when the trays come up. I was wondering what other VA's do. The reason I was given, is the fact that our pts are allowed to go off the unit to smoke and some have trips to other VA's for procedures and doctor appts.

Thanks for any info you can share.

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Specializes in EMT, ER, Homehealth, OR.

Sounds like you work on a long term care floor

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I worked in SCU at a VA in California. Sometimes I picked up overtime on the Med-Surg floor. We had LVNs to do the PO and SubQs. The RNs would do the IVP and IVPBs. Usually, we would go ahead and cover the pt per RISS. If they had long acting we would try to give no more than an hour before breakfast. As a RN you should be in charge of overall care...what if something happens to your pt while on the long med pass??? PO and SQ should be tasked out to LVNs.

You are overworked, 10-12 pts without a team (RN, LVN,CNA) is dangerous.

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Jeckrn, I work on a med/surg floor but many are there for 2-4 weeks.

I do have 2 aides on the floor but usually have 28-32 pts on the entire floor. They do take b/p not blood sugars. Also RN's are charge but we do have a few RN that work night shift. ANd as a newbie if there are 2 I am usually on meds. But some RN do not help the med RN. Since I am meds they just expect me to do the PICC IV's. Plus all the blood sugars and other IV. Just last night I had 4 IV's along with 5 blood sugars and another 6pts most with blood pressure meds not to mention having to do behaviorial reports on them. It is way too much. I was wondering if other VA's have the same problems. When is your biggest med pass? Ours is 6AM. Smallest amount of staff no pharmacy open.

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At my VA, where I work day shift, our largest med pass is the 1000 one. However, we only have between 7-9 pt's to give meds to. We do the blood sugars and IVPBs ourselves. We do have a lot of IVPB lately. I wish we had enough LPNs to have them passing meds and then we could concentrate on assessments, wound care, etc. On our unit, the LPNs and the NAs pretty much do the same thing, sad to say. The only thing the LPNs do differently is pass meds occasionally, VERY occasionally. The problem we're having lately, though, is all our BULLS and COWS keep breaking down. They want us to scan every pt, every med, every wound care cream, etc., but they don't give us the equipment to do it! Very frustrating! Sorry for the rant - today was a really long day! :eek:

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I work day shift on an Acute Care/ICU combo ward. We are a relatively small VA with 20 inpatient beds. Our largest med pass is 0900 for sure. We then turn around and do a fairly heavy 1100 med pass as well. At our VA, the 0600 med pass is pretty light consisting mostly of AC fingersticks.

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Thanks for all your replys. I am new to the VA and I just do not think it is a good idea to have the largest med pass during an off tour since we do not have a pharmacy. Not to mention giving MANY drugs to patients on a empty stomach. We give alot of colace. Also we usually have 12-15 pts to give all these meds. I have talked to my nurse manager and her reasoning is that our vets are able to leave our floor to smoke and we do have trips to other VA's but that is only 2-3 that leave that early. Just do not think it is safe. Any comments or advise. Am I wrong?

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