Medication Tech Training

Interesting....In Mass, the MAP trained staff are certified on their own and there's no delegation by the RN. In RI, where I work primarily, it's ALL delegation with no standardized training in the DD field. There are med techs in other areas, but they typically don't work in the DD field.

Actually, the the med techs can be licensed to do just about anything here. I have Gtube training, insulin training, and I also have training to do wet/dry wraps.

we do g tubes, jtubes, etc., and as of march of this year, can delegate insulin injections if they are predosed. In Mass, only nurses can do insulin.

We can do premeasured and manual measured. I just got trained for that last week.

whats up Charlie don't take in all the neg only pos Iam sure u will do just fine I use to be a med tech in Texas and it is not that difficult just make sure you check the patients wrist band so all identification match up and make sure you document it right after the med is given make sure you count all narcotics when you come on shift and before you leave your shift even if you feel they are trust worthy always count the narcotics and sign off and just cause some of you people are nurse don't mean you should be charlie keep on advancing in your career God bless you .

In NC you can become certified as a med tech as well. From a nursing point of view I think this is unsafe. I just can't undertstand how anyone can gain enough knowledge in an 8-14 hour course to safely administer medications when I took an entire semester (12 weeks) of Pharmacology. I still have to look up some medications in the reference book before I give them because I'm not familiar with them and need to know side effects to look for, effective response, labs to monitor, etc. And new medications are discovered every year! I'm just not comfortable letting my license ride on someone who doesn't have the education of experience to properly assess a patient before adminstering a medication. The key word here being ASSESS! The last time I checked assessment was not a task that could or should be delegated to non-licensed personnel.

You are absolutely correct---assessment cannot be delegated. In states that don't have nurses overseeing the medication admiistration process that creates a real problem. In my state I am responsibe for training and ensuring that staff are competently trained and can competently perform the task...I am not responsible for the outcomes of their actions though. I am still responsible for ongoing assessments of the client. As far as knowing the medications and their side effects, I provide patient specific information for my staff, who are then required to teach the client about the medications. In one program, my clients are actually teaching my new staff! I don't have frequent changes though--the clients are quite stable living in the community so it is pretty easy to stay current with--I can't imagine what I'd do if there were frequent changes.

We do have a high turnover rate at our facility, which is hard on the nursing staff as well as the clients. Maybe I'm just an OCD control freak and that's why I feel the way I do. But at the same time, our facility is compromised of several different buildings with varying levels of MR. The majority of our campus is comprised of lower functioning individuals with various medical conditions and most are completely dependent requiring multiple medications (some are on 10+ multiple times per day - NO LIE), tube feedings, etc. We are in the midst of transitioning from ICF to skilled nursing for these vary reasons. And you know, if the client to nurse ratio wasn't so high (15+:1) I'd be all for total care nursing. To me, a medication pass is more than that - it's a prime time to assess your clients on a regular/more frequent basis.

Thanksfr the info. We've closed all of our insititional type facilities and most of the MR/DD population live in the community in small group homes and their own aprtments and condos. A few are in regular nursing homes but there's a state move to ghet them in the community as well. It would be phyically impossible for a nurse to be in every one of our group homes 24 hours a day for routine and prn med passes--in fact, a large percentage of my clients wouldn't WANT us there anyway! LOL

In Indiana I had to go to Indianapolis to be trained on how to teach Medcore. Here, only Nurses are allowed to teach Medcore, and like I said, we have to be trained, and have a huge book we have to by and all that.