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Lessons · Nursing · a med pass, end to end

A med pass, end to end

Read the record, clean your hands, prepare one patient's medications while checking the label against the record, identify the patient with two identifiers at the bedside, give it, watch it taken, and document immediately.

Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.

What it is for

Everything on this track meets here. The arithmetic happened at the cart, the identification happens at the door, the documentation happens after the tablet is swallowed. A pass goes wrong in the gaps between those, which is why it is one sequence and not six habits.

How to think about it

One patient at a time, from the cart to the bedside and back. Check the label against the record when you take it out, when you prepare it, and before you give it. Never leave a prepared medication unattended, and never sign for anything you did not watch happen.

Worked example

1. Read the record: drug, dose, route, time, allergies
Before anything is picked up.
2. Hand hygiene
Before preparing, and again before touching the patient.
3. Prepare for one patient, checking the label against the record
One patient's medications at a time, the label read each time it is handled.
4. At the bedside: two identifiers
Name and date of birth, stated by the patient, against the band and the record.
5. Explain, give, and watch it taken
A tablet left on a tray is not a dose given.
6. Document immediately, with the time it was given
After it is given, not before, and by the person who gave it.

Your turn

Write the word that puts documentation on the right side of the dose.

6. Document  it is given

The trap

Preparing two patients' medications together to save a trip. The moment two sets of tablets are on one tray, the only thing keeping them apart is memory, and memory is what the whole procedure exists to replace.

Practise a med pass, end to end on HoneA question on it now, a coding challenge where there is one, and it is remembered for review. Free, no email needed.