1 2 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • F E B R U A R U Y 2 0 1 8
W
e installed
a lockbox
in each of
our 2 ORs to store the
medications we need
for the day's cases.
Instead of running to
the medication room
between cases to gath-
er meds for each case,
a nurse simply
unlocks the medica-
tion lockbox we
bought on Amazon
and gets what she needs. We lock the tamperproof box when it's not
in use. When the box is empty at day's end, the circulator leaves the
key in the door. The next morning's circulator removes the key and
keeps it on her lanyard. We prepare our medications the day before,
looking at the schedule and then pulling a bin of all the day's meds,
including vials of local anesthetics (which we draw up and administer
right away), antibiotic ophthalmic and eye drops. We lock the bin in
the med room overnight and then transfer its contents to the lockbox
the next morning before the first case of the day at 7:30 a.m.
Glory S. Billman, BSN, RN
Pediatric Specialists of Virginia
MEDICATION LOCKBOX
Keep Drugs Under Lock and Key in the OR
Ideas Work
P r a c t i c a l p e a r l s f r o m y o u r c o l l e a g u e s
That
• UNDER LOCK + KEY Monique Guyse, RN, a staff nurse at Pediatric Specialists of
Virginia, came up with the idea to store drugs in a medication lockbox located in the OR.
Glory
S.
Billman,
BSN,
RN
Fairfax, Va.
gbillman@psvcare.org
