Unattended Unlocked Medication Cart with Medications Left Accessible
Penalty
Summary
A medication/treatment cart on station 3 was observed to be unlocked and unattended at the nurses station, with a bottle of Hysept wound cleanser and a medicine cup containing an unidentified gel left on top. The facility's policy requires all compartments containing medications and biologicals to be locked when not in use and for carts to not be left unattended if open or accessible. At the time of the observation, the nurse assigned to the cart was not present, and a CNA subsequently locked the cart. Both the administrator and the assigned RN confirmed that the cart should have been locked and that medications should not have been left on top, acknowledging that residents or visitors could have accessed the medications. The facility had 95 residents at the time of the incident.