Should medication aides exist?

I think that they are helpful for passing out every day meds in an LTC facility.
but definitely not in acute care.

heck yeah they should exist. that would put so much more work on the already busy nurses.

Sounds like their is a lot of feelings against med aides. Are we threatened by them.

Why? Are the dangers no longer exisistant? The potential for errors are huge, just look at the numbers of Residents that med aides give out, without the liability or education of a nurse. LTC nurses protest that they have too many patients and worry about safety when they have huge med passes. Medicine needs to be given as it is supposed to, not handed out one by one on an assembly line. If they want to 'help' LTC nurses, delegate more of the scheduling, filing, finding, to unlicensed personel, schedule MORE of them to do care like toileting, bathing and add an extra nurse or two on the schedule. INSTEAD of just shifting the burden of the HUGE med pass on someone who makes less money!

I toyed with the idea of becoming a med aide, thinking it would give me some education on meds, however...
the thought that I would possibly do some serious damage to someone turned me off.
I am a person who likes to learn things, but I also like to know WHY I am doing them. What if I was in a situation where I was unsure and the RN wasn't willing to educate me? Where would I be then?
Like the situation with the med aide and the cardiac meds, for example. That aide didn't know diddly... was anyone willing to explain the WHY of it to that aide?
I do believe there are probably some above and beyond med aides who don't just blindly pass. They take the time to further educate themselves and ask WHY or critically think, BUT, in the end, I do believe they are doing themselves a disservice. They should become a NURSE and get paid nursing wages for their smarts and the responsibility.
Anyone can be taught to do something, but if that person doing the task can't answer a patient's questions about the WHY of it or critically think and make a sound judgement, that is a problem.
I, too, think it's a cost cutting ploy and I refused to let myself get suckered into it.
Not only would I set myself up for a dangerous outcome, but I would also endanger someone's license...
I wasn't going there!

i think medication should most especially in the nursing home not in the hospital because in the nursing the nurses are abuse with lots of work by having medication it will help the nurses with some of the work so those patient can get their med on time. i use to work as a medication aid ein the nursing home i was not taking the nurses job away but rather decrease the nurses stress. medication in nursing home not hospital

My previous workplace once staffed a long-term care unit with 4 LPNs/LVNs. Management now staffs this very same unit with 1 medication aide and 2 LPNs/LVNs. In other words, 2 nursing jobs were eliminated, and the company is saving plenty of money by paying a whopping $12 hourly to the medication aide.

I've had the chance to work with a really good med. tech and a really bad one too and as much as I liked the good one (she was kind, diligent and really knew her stuff) I still wouldn't allow a med. tech to work under my license. If they were considered to be independent and completely responsible for their own actions with no impact on me then PERHAPS I would work with one but even then I highly doubt it. I just don't think its a good idea to administer any medication even aspirin if your not aware of some basic information about the drug. I also think that the training definitely needs to be revamped and standardized in all facilities if a med. tech is going to be used but overall I just don't know how safe it is for patients to be using med. techs and other unlicensed staff to make up for not having enough licensed nurses.

!Chris

Unfortunately, for nurses in Washington State, the WASHINGTON STATE NURSES ASSOCIATION THREW NURSES UNDER THE BUS, AND CAVED IN TO THE NURSING HOME INDUSTRY, AND THE ASSISTED LIVING FACILITIES. They allowed Medication Aides to be created in Washington State, allowing not much more than HS dropouts to pass medications in nursing homes, and assisted living facilities.

Not only are elderly residents being cheated out of licensed nurses passing medications, but developmentally disabled individuals are also subjected to unqualified individuals passing medications to them.

We are allowing our most vulnerable citizens to be placed in unsafe situations through no fault of their own. Nurses must fight this developing trend of de skilling our professional practice, before we have no professional practice left.

I have been chewed out by the monitors of this listserve, when I stated several years ago, that it is the goal of the hospital industry to further disempower us by removing the need for licensed nurses. They are doing this one step at a time, by chipping at our professional practice, until we will have no professional practice left. Just look at what has happened in only the past ten years.

Never did I imagine in my wildest dreams, that a nurses aide, unlicensed, uneducated, assistive personnel, would be allowed to take over the professional practice of passing medications. Our state nurses associations, and our Boards of Nursing, our completely responsible for this assault on the nursing profession. Case closed. JMHO and my NY $0.02.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN
Spokane, Washington