Does anyone know of a best practice guideline for a timeline requirement for clinicians to return unused / unopened medications to the automated dispensing machine (Pyxis, Omnicell, etc.) after they've taken the med out of the machine for a patient and then not used them (ie. patient refused, etc.)?

Or, if you don't know of a published guideline, what timeline does your facility require?

Note: I'm not talking about wasting medication, but rather returning unused / unopened medication.

Thanks -
Chad

Our facility is considering placing un-activated mini-bags in Pyxis. We would attach the antibiotic vials to the bags in our IV room. From what we have found, we could use a 30 day BUD on the 100 mL un-activated bags in Pyxis. Nursing staff would activate the bag immediately before administering. For those that use a similar setup - did you have issues with bags being hung without them being activated? (essentially a missed dose of antibiotic?) The concern for doses not being activated has been our one road block so far.

We utilize Pyxis from BD as our automated dispensing cabinet (ADC) vendor, which includes a feature known as a “Too Close to Remove” alert. This alert functions by warning the end user upon removal of a medication for a patient if a dispense of the same medication within a time frame pre-determined by the organization has already occurred. The time setting is applied to the medication record and cannot be turned off or on for various stations in certain patient care areas (e.g. ORs).

Hello,

We recently had a near miss event at our institution where 2 patients with the same name (one Jr, one Sr.) almost received medications intended for the other patient.

Upon review, one of the gaps we identified was that the patient suffix does not display for nurses on Pyxis ES console. According to our BD Carefusion representative, the patient suffix information is transmitted over to Pyxis, but is information only and cannot be displayed for nursing at the console.

Have any institutions been asked to load concentrated ketamine (100 mg/ml) in the ED ADM? We currently have the 10 mg/ml strength loaded, but the concentrated ketamine is sent from the Pharmacy patient-specific.