partial hospital program

laurenkst · Dec 29, 2003

I just received an e-mail from the NIMH website on Medications. Please look into the medication information @http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/medicate.cfm. The information is down to earth and relatively easy to understand. It might help you develop a lesson plan for patients--Lauren

elkpark · Jan 16, 2004

Please make yourself (and other staff in your program) of any confidentiality issues that may be involved in med ed groups. I am in a different state than you, but it would be a violation of our state rules and regulations related to patient privacy and patient rights to disclose (in, say, a med ed group ...) to other patients what medications a patient is on. There are probably HIPAA privacy issues, also. Group presentations (in my state) need to be generic -- info can be presented about medications that some members of the group may be taking, but you shouldn't indicate to the group which members of the group are on which meds. Of course, a _patient_ may choose to disclose to the group that he or she is on a specific medication in order to ask a specific question, but it is the patient's right to maintain that privacy.

You may have similar rules in your state. Good luck with your new role!

StuPer · Jan 16, 2004

Hello Litalya,

I don't know if I'm teaching you to suck eggs with this info, so please don't be offended if this is something you already know. Most drug companies release patient information leaflets for psychiatric medication (as well as others). So often time simply typing in the name of the drug and 'patient information leaflet' into Google, results in a downloadable pdf file that can be printed and used to provide educational material. As they are specifically aimed at patients they tend to be much easier to understand.

regards StuPer

cindyrn1 · May 23, 2004

First of all I am jealous that you have such a great job! Where are you located that they have a Partial Hospitalization Program? Second of all, there are so many things you can do in your program being the nurse and all. The main thing is that you need to keep your subject short and to the point. You will find that 35-45 minute groups are about as long as they can take at one time. Also handouts work best with those in your group. It allows them to look at something while you are talking about it. With medication education, you can always have the drug reps come and see you with their samples and have them give you one of their tapes. I had tons of them when I was Director of a PHP program. Let the tapes do the teaching and then you do the answering of the questions in lay-men's terms. Always search the internet and it too will give you lots of information. I didn't have the luxury of having the internet when I did PHP's. As for groups, as long as your groups are called psychoeducational and they are a certain length of time, you can bill the clients for every group that you do. Some of the groups that I did were: Depression, Anxiety, Assertiveness vs Aggressiveness, Active listening skills, Communication skills, Medication management and symptomology, Grief and Loss, Personality Disorders, and so many more. You could spend one week discussing the different areas of Depression. Try to do groups around the time of the year too. Like at Christmas, a good discussion to start is on Depression because so many people have trouble with depression during this time. I would be more than happy to answer any questions if you have any on PHP's. Take care and good luck in your job.

:balloons: