FOAM INSERT Here's an innovative way to organize your dilating drops as you dispense them so you never forget at which bottle you left off.

FOAM DROPS HOLDER
Dispense Dilating Drops With Precision

All it takes is one small interruption to make a pre-op nurse who's administering dilating drops to a cataract patient forget which drop she was dispensing. "Oh, no! Which drop was I on?" We came up with a simple solution to keep the 6 bottles of eye drops straight.

• Buy a few plastic rectangular boxes like the one in the photos from a stationery store.
• Tape a numbered (1-6) list of your dilating drops to the outside of the plastic box.
• Fit a piece of blue foam inside the box.
• Next, remove the foam and cut 12 facing holes out of the foam so that the 6 dropper bottles can stand upright (the first 3 drops are for YAG laser capsulotomies).
• Place numbered labels on the foam beside the 6 holes that correspond to the numbered drug list on the outside of the box.

Now you're set. Once a nurse removes a bottle from the foam hole on the right-hand side and administers the drop, she returns the bottle to the foam hole on the left-hand side. So even if she's interrupted while she's administering the dilating drops, she'll know just where she left off. When you're administering 3 doses of as many as 6 different drops, this idea helps you stay on track.

Ruth Albano, RN, BSN
Spanish Peaks Regional Health Center
Walsenburg, Colo.
[email protected]