What I personally saw as a nursing director was 1) scanning a label instead of the ID band on the patient's wrist. This was in a facility that had big med carts on wheels, with a laptop attached, and a hardwired scanner. The nurses said they were scanning labels because "it makes too much noise to roll the med cart across the threshold to the room, and we don't want to wake up the patient". A real barrier to rolling the med cart into the room was that the nurse often had to move furniture and equipment around to be able to get close enough to the patient to reach him with the hard-wired scanner. The label-scanning thing was happening at a lot of facilities until everyone figured out that they had to have a way to ensure that the ID band, and only the ID band, could be scanned in the eMAR system. So you need a way to allow the system to differentiate between ID bands and labels. And it might be helpful to consider what equipment is being provided, whether nurses have room to get the equipment to the patient, etc. For training purposes, I think you have to emphasize that scanning is a form of documentation, and point out the illegality of intentionally falsifying information and what the consequences could be.
2) opening medications prior to scanning - this is a big no no - works OK in some circumstances, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Otherwise, you have nurses who will open meds at the nurses station two hours ahead of time, if that's when they have a free moment. Two hours later - or 10 minutes later - if those meds haven't been under that nurse's direct observation for the entire time, who is to say what's in there now? Plus, if the nurse opens containers before scanning, the bar code labeled can be ripped. You then have nurses looking through the patient's med drawer for another pill so they can scan THAT one instead. The nurse THINKS it's the same pill, but is it? As far as training goes, this may be a more subtle point. It is more obvious to people, I think, that scanning something other than the bracelet on the patient's wrist is wrong. There may need to be discussion and consensus among nursing leadership regarding the issue of opening meds before scanning, so that everyone is on the same page. There may be times and settings when this could be permissible and those may need to be defined. 3) scanning the med but using the recall function at the "patient name" prompt, instead of scanning the patient - the system was reconfigured so that this could no longer be done. I don't know if this was happening outside of my multi-site hospital system. You'll want to check and make sure your system doesn't let you do that. 4) rarely scanning for whatever reason - training, attitude, and/or the belief that no one is paying attention (the standardized stat reports can be used to disabuse nurses of the notion that nobody knows what they are doing). Scanning numbers can also be down because there simply isn't enough equipment to go around, eg 5 nurses on a unit sharing 4 med cart/emar laptops, or because equipment is poorly supported, eg IT tech staff insisting that all the laptop problems are due to stupid users. What I (and others) would like to see happen is a follow-up retraining about one month after initial eMAR/BMV training 5) using the edit function (if I recall correctly) to "backtime" medication administration time, to make it look like the med was given within the (admittedly unrealistic) 30 minute administration window. This, too, could be tracked with a report - but it might have been a custom. What I have heard of is 1) carrying an extra patient ID band in one's pocket to scan (reportedly, the nurse believe this was OK because, after all, she was scanning the patient's ID band) 2) scanning the patient and med AFTER administration (reported to me by a colleague recently hospitalized) Sharon ________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bowles, Jodi Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 8:53 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [MEDITECH-L] eMAR/BMV My facility is once again attempting to start BMV and eMAR. I have noticed lots of inquires on the "L" regarding workarounds with BMV. Can someone give an example of a "workaround". Is there anything that I can do in the planning and teaching phase of eMAR and BMV to help decrease workarounds? Thanks Jodi Bowles RN, BSN Clinical Systems Coordinator Princeton West Virginia
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