Are Your Residents Compliant With Self-administered Medication?

Ability to self-administer medications has emerged as the main predictor of appropriate placement and level of care for residents in Nursing and Care Homes.  These results underscore the importance of assessing: 1) the resident’s ability to answer questions related to self-medication and their diagnosis and 2) the actual auditing of self-administration over several days related to the answers above to ensure comprehension and reliability of the initial questions asked.  

One assumes that residents will follow the physician’s directions and that there is a basic understanding of their diagnosis and the resulting therapeutic regime that has been established.  A number of studies have disclosed an alarming rate between 25-59% of medication errors and noncompliance related to self-administration. 

There are several tools available to support residents and staff within a Nursing and Care Home community. This is to ensure comprehension and compliance through notifications to the resident and real-time alerts to staff.  These tools not only notify a resident of when medications are due, but they also provide an image, a description, the use of the medication, and the ability for the resident to document a note. To learn more about MED e-care’s eMAR, please get in touch.

Noncompliance is most often a result of cognition.  The cost of medication errors in the health sector globally has skyrocketed.  The results from the initial studies on compliance are the tip of the iceberg, the proverbial canary in the mine. 

The cost of the tools that are available to ensure compliance, are a fraction of the financial savings to our residents’ health, family’s peace of mind and the unnecessary admissions to hospital as a result.   

Would you like to learn more about how MED e-care can help you? Please don’t hesitate to “book a demo”