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What is a medication error in home care?

Prescription Medication

What are medication errors in home care?  First, there are many different kinds of medication errors and other administering errors for resident in assisted living facilities. 

For example,  people who are not being given the proper doses of. Other examples,  wrong time, wrong method of it being  administered.  Finally, wrong medication, theft as well as replacement medications (referred to as drug diversion).

There is an ongoing problem with Medication errors  in home care communities. In fact, it will often threaten the health and safety of residents. Poor exchange of information and lacking proper communication between the specialist and home‐care health services can be deadly.  In addition, lacking  competence in the  healthcare workers will also cause medication errors.

Sponsored by Med-Q Medication Compliance System

pill box with alarm
A medication error is an error in the process of prescribing, dispensing, preparing, administering, monitoring or providing medicine advice, regardless of whether any harm occurred. Care homes are required to have “arrangements for reporting adverse events, adverse drug reactions, incidents, errors and near misses.”

What are the Medication Management Issues In Assisted Living

senior independenceThe goal, to be able to juggle all kinds of independence  mixed with health care.  However, the goal is at worst, impossible and at best, a difficult exercise for assisted living communities and residents.

Most Senior Men and Women flock to assisted living for for the freedom they offer.  For example, senior’s friend and family are relying more and more one professional caregivers.  Hence, a safe environments that include monitoring of their medication healthcare needs.  Nowhere is the more important than medication compliancy.

Medical Schedules are more complex than ever

Help with the challenges of of daily living is what has become needed.  For example, different types of personal care. In addition, medication management is a vital  service provided by any care community.

Nearly 59 percent of the assisted living communities in the US will provide services for Alzheimer’s disease as well as many other kinds of dementia-related issues. 62 Percent will offer special care programs geared to diabetes.  73 percent with care for cardiovascular disease as well as  depression.

Fact, seniors need help to manage these serious health conditions.  In fact, they simply areunable toi   manage complex medication schedules without expert help. 

More than half of assisted living residents are 85 or older, according to the National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL).

Seniors managing their personal medications

There is a change in the air.  Now that a generation of Baby boomers  are beginning to go into assisted living there is a new set of problems.  The generation is fiercely independent.  In addition, they are the most cognitively strong group  that has come before in Human History.

Ironically, that strength and independence has come with a cost.  The cost,  a level of vulnerable.  Medication is the prime example.  Old fashion pill boxes simply don’t work.  Forgetting and over dosing is rampant in these care homes. In fact,  assisted living residents take 12 plus pills everyday single day.

Seniors use many pharmacies, which can lead to problems.

Pharmacists In addition, many residents will  use some different pharmacies for different pills and medications.  The results,  ” polypharmacy”.  This will lead to redundancies, duplication and overlap.  To sum up, negative health outcomes.  The issue of polypharmacy will create many new problems. This lack of coordination can lead to unforeseen issues, some may be deadly.

Polypharmacy, defined as regular use of at least five medications, is common in older adults and younger at-risk populations and increases the risk of adverse medical outcome

Toward solutions and innovations

Med-Q Pill BoxNo single innovation offers a complete solution.  Modern technology like the Med-Q Smart Pill Box with Alarms is an example of tech help.  Med-Q is one of thje  “upstream technologies” that will make huge improvements in medication compliance.  Additionally,  e-Prescribing, computerized physician order entry and clinical decision support systems will reduce problems. Furthermore, “Downstream” technologies will offer,  electronic medication administration records, bar-coded point-of-care systems as well as future kinds of  remote pharmacy operation systems.

The recognition of medication management gaps in assisted living has also led to enhanced medication therapy management roles for consultant pharmacists, who are widely lauded for their ability in reducing the risks of transcription errors, drug-drug interactions, and omission errors.

Additional examples,  multi-dose packaging, customized compliance packaging, emergency medication delivery and smart pill boxes and medication dispensers.  These modern medication management systems are usually inexpensive and have very good results.

Future state of The Home Care Community

We are living in the golden age of medicine.  First, technology in the field of medication management is exploding’s.  Second, most of the health care professionals tell us that it even close to  peaking.  Health Care providers are aware that the patient-centered era as a the new standard.  

Proven technologies like automation will continue to offer means for reducing human error.

Around the corner, observers agree a new era of “big data” approaches to safer medication regimens is near. And as health information and financial systems increasingly reach interoperability, those charged with managing seniors’ medications will for once be empowered to make the most effective and safe decisions.

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