Storage of patient owned meds that are controlled

PLEASE NOTE:   Posts made to this forum should not be considered as the expressed opinions of, nor should be considered endorsed by, the Medication Safety Officer’s Society (MSOS) or the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP). 

Make sure your email is up-to-date
In order to continue to receive updates from MSOS, as well as forum posts and other valuable information as a member of MSOS, please be sure to update your email address with us, whenever it changes. If you need assistance doing so, please send an email to jgold@ismp.org

7 posts / 0 new
Last post
Diane Simko
Diane Simko's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 week 3 days ago
Joined: 02/05/2020 - 14:27
Storage of patient owned meds that are controlled

Hello all,

My organization currently stores patient owned meds that are not being used for a hospital stay and cannot be sent home with the family in a designated area in inpatient pharmacy. The process is set up so that the pharmacy is blind to what is in the package (which should be sealed in front of the patient and patient signs a form agreeing to storage). Recently our nursing staff has expressed being uncomfortable with storage of a patient owned med that is a control because they want to count the med before putting it in the bag and write on the bag how many of the med are in the package so that there is no liability for the RN if the control goes missing. Our policy specifically states not to write on the package what is inside to keep pharmacy blind. Can anyone else share if they have any solutions for this that would ease the mind of our nursing staff?

Thanks!
Diane Simko