Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
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1 5 8 O U T P AT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 5 from facility to facility. I'm often asked if contracted anesthesia providers should have access. Individual facilities must make that call, but in my opinion, anesthetists shouldn't have access. RNs involved with drug distribution and department managers should maintain regu- lar control of medication storage and counts. Perhaps you can set up a system of individual storage bins with breakaway seals so contracted anesthesia providers can get the medications they need for a day's cases. Regular audits? You must have checks and audits in place for the handling of controlled substances, from when they enter your building to when they're administered to patients. Keeping tabs on controlled sub- stances can't be limited to occasional audits by a consulting pharma- cist; nurse managers must have a role in auditing the drug manage- ment process. Conduct regular chart audits to compare what's been administered to what's been signed out. Even if you don't notice questionable drug management, your staff will notice that someone is auditing the process. Anyone who's considering diverting drugs would have to think twice if they're not entirely sure of who's checking what and when. Simply completing audits in plain view puts doubt in the mind of a would-be stealer. Can I get away with this? Maybe not. You can also use audits to look for drug administration trends that might reveal red flags that warrant further investigation. Are dosing amounts written over? (To make a correction, strike a line through the number and rewrite the correct figure.) Is documentation sloppy? Are signatures missing next to count or wastage records? How often do nurses sign out narcotics and how much medication wastage do 4 S A F E T Y