What exactly is a pyxis?

Specialties Med-Surg

Published

Silly question, I know...but in the hospital where we do our clinicals (Im still a student, to graduate in May) they still use the roll around med carts. The hospital where I have accepted my first job uses a "pyxis", (i think Im spelling it correctly), but I have no idea what that is or how its used!!

Any help?;)

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Specializes in Cardiac, NICU, ED.

At the hospital that I am doing my clinicals at, all the PRN medications are kept in the pyxis. It is computerized and requires a fingerprint to access. You choose your patient from the list and pick the PRN, you choose which med to give and it dispenses only as many as you choose. I hope that was some help.

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Specializes in ED, Rehab, LTC.

In one hospital I went to the pyxis was for all PO meds and in another hospital it was for controlled substances only.

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Specializes in home health, neuro, palliative care.

It will be something similar to this:

http://www.pyxis.com/prodDetails.aspx?pid=118 Don't worry, your NM will train you. Have fun at your new job!

~Mel'

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i was wondering what that one was too until one of my fellow nursing students was kind enough to show me ....lots of my instructors use medical jargon as if everybody knows it already...."triple lumen this..IV bolus that..slam this.....etc.."

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Specializes in Adult Care- Neuro ICU, Ortho, IRU, Pedi.

It is a very user friendly (usually touch screen) machine that despenses meds in a way like a vending machine. Although there are lot of ways that the system can alert you and save you from miscounting. It can get you royally confused if the count is somehow off. If you do something like try to pull a med for your patient under another patients name that will only mess you up and get you in trouble later. It knows when you logged in what meds you took out at one time and also keeps track of your narcotics that were pulled. So at the end of your shift if you forget to chart a pain med but you weren't sure about something you can make a printout of your activity for your shift. This helps you remember your times for charting if you get behind this is a great tool to help u but try to keep up without using it. Maybe print it after your charting and see how you did with keeping up with it all day. But for the most part it is a very nice setup and I miss my old pyxis:o . I have reverted to the old ages where I live and back to the old filling of the medcart in the early hours and hope everything is there. Handwritten MAR's. Can you believe that still exists? Just know before you will get to use it there is a tutorial that it will walk you through...very easy and only a few minutes long. You can personalize it to use your fingerprint or a password instead as well as put the brand name on the screen or the generic, which ever you prefer. Hope this helps

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thanks for all the info!

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Specializes in Orthopedics/Med-Surg, LDRP.

I LOVE the Pyxis. It's very user friendly and much easier than the old-fashioned med carts I encountered at one hospital unit. Basically all hospitals here have a pyxis machine. You touch screen the pt's name and all of their medications are profiled there - only THEIRS and no one elses, so that's the first step in not making a mistake. Then you touch only the ones you want, touch "remove" and then the drawers open up individually and either an individual pocket opens or a drawer opens where it tells you which pocket to get a med out of. Narcotics make you count them before you can remove them and if there's a discrepancy it makes you count it a 2nd time and if it's still wrong it automatically alerts the pharmacy and spits out a little 'receipt' about the discrepancy and who was the last to pull a med out of that drawer. The only thing you have to watch for is where you're giving a half of a dose and there's a full dose of something. You have to check your dosages carefully.

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Specializes in Oncology, LTC, Home Health & M/S.

All our meds are in the pyxis/accudose except for IVPBs, IVF with additives and meds requiring refrigeration. Ours doesn't use your fingerprint to access it but you are given an ID and select a password that it prompts you to change every few months.

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Specializes in med surg.

can someone pls explain to me what over riding is as far as pyxis is concerned.

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In an urgent/emergent situation, you can 'override' the patient profile and get a dose of medication not on the MAR -- for example, your MD may say to give Lasix 20mg IVP now and you can get it immedicately. Of course, you are limited to the drugs your Pysiz is stocked with but it is a real time saver!

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Specializes in med surg.

thanx rocky for the infor, does pyxis have all the drug name by what the pyxis is holding or is it by the formulary .

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