EDK: Eventually Discovered Kit
Years ago, I worked as a pharmacist at a long-term care pharmacy. We serviced nursing homes.
We provided the facilities with Emergency Drug Kits (EDKs) for, well, Emergency use. They contained a myriad of medications. Any time a facility used a medication from their EDK, they were to sign the med out and return the EDK on the evening delivery run and request a new one.
So one Saturday afternoon, I got a call from a facility about an hour away. They needed [medication].
Me: “Good news! It’s in your EDK!”
Nurse: “Oh, no, it’s not. We used it.”
Me: “Today?”
Nurse: “No. Yesterday.”
Me: *Sigh.* “And you didn’t send the EDK back for a new one?”
Nurse: “I guess I forgot.”
Everyone is human, so I said I would call a few pharmacies in the area and see if they had the medication.
We had contracts with several local pharmacies. They would fill small amounts of medications for our patients, and we would have local couriers pick up and deliver the medications. It saved us money vs sending medications from our pharmacy to far-flung facilities.
I called several pharmacies. No luck. I ended up sending the medication from our pharmacy at great expense. The delivery charge was not passed along to the facility. This was our policy, and they knew it.
Monday morning, the pharmacist who ran our warehouse came up to me with a crumpled bag. It was the medication I had sent out on Saturday afternoon.
Pharmacist: “[My name], do you know about this?”
Me: “Oh, I sure do!”
I told him the whole story.
He asked me to call and find out what was going on. I was worried all of a sudden. What if the patient died? All sorts of things passed through my mind.
I took a deep breath and called. I got the same nurse as on Saturday.
Me: “We’ve received the medication back from you. Why?”
Nurse: “Oh, it was in the EDK!”
Resisting the urge to bang my head on the desk, I said:
Me: “Yes, I told you that. You said you’d used it.”
Nurse: “Well, I guess not. We must have just not looked hard enough. After we got off the phone, we decided to look again, and there it was!”
Me: “Well, I called you back and told you it was on the way. I wish you had told me that you found it!”
He had no reply.
