Avoiding Medication Misuse in RCFEs

800px-Lexapro_pills.jpg

Running an RCFE is hard work. You must maintain a great community while serving the individual needs of each resident. You must make sure your staff is well-trained to offer assistance whenever it is needed, whether it is personal care or medical care. This care involves the administration of medication, which can be tricky, but it is imperative that you and your staff get it right. RCFE recertification may be just the education you need to sharpen your care skills further so that mistakes with medicine are not made by your staff and are even recognized and remedied when the mistake belongs to another caretaker.

 

Many issues with medication begin with diagnosis, which is mostly out of the RCFE staff’s hands. Residents need to be able to trust their doctors to treat the root of their problems, not just the symptoms. That doesn’t let the RCFE staff off the hook, though. If you and your staff are properly trained, you should be able to recognize when a treatment plan isn’t working and give feedback to that as you work with the team of medical professionals who are responsible for each resident’s care.

 

It is highly important to document medication prescription and usage. RCFE recertification courses refresh your memory of proper documentation and may introduce you to new standards of care that have been initiated. It is only by meticulous documentation at every stage of the residents’ treatment programs that the effectiveness of a drug on the patient can be accurately assessed. Doctors must adequately document diagnoses, and those who carry out the administration of prescriptions must keep track of what they do. It is the responsibility of the whole care team to make sure medications are not misused.

 

You take RCFE recertification classes to brush up on resident care. You can receive tips on working with physicians and nurses and your staff to give the best care possible, especially when it comes to your residents’ medication plans.

Leave a comment