DDNA Chapter

You may want to try calling and speaking with nurses at ICF/DD organizations in your area to see if there is any interest or maybe email the admin at ddna.org and ask their advice on how to garner interest in starting a state chapter. We have 2 chapters in my state, but both are pretty far from where I'm at, I really want to try and get to at least one meeting this year.

I read some of your earlier posts, how is your med error situation now? It really can be frustrating, I know it drives me nuts, but thankfully they are much fewer and far between now. If you still need some ideas in this area, let me know, I'd be happy to help if I can.

I always need ideas! I created a form for the house managers to guide them through a weekly audit of the MARs and meds, but the nursing supervisor hasn't introduced in to the company yet. She keeps planning to at our operations meetings, but it keeps getting left off the agenda. One factor that we cannot control is our pharmacy, and they've been giving us a lot of problems lately. Consumers will run out of meds, and the pharmacy will not have a correct count on prescription refills, etc. It's a mess... But we do what we can. Any suggestions you can give to me would be greatly appreciated. What kind of company/facility do you work for?

I have been in contact with the admin for the DDNA Chapters, and she has suggested that I attend the conference in Orlando to attend the leadership meeting. As far as gathering interest, I have a couple of nursing students telling their classes, and I know of one instructor who will be passing the information along to hers. While I think that's fabulous, I would love to find more seasoned nurses. I thought of creating some sort of flyer to fax out to other group home companies like ours, but I don't know if that would be appropriate. There aren't any forums for DD nurses in AL that I'm aware of...

Yikes! That pharmacy issue is awful, but you are correct, you can't really control the actions of the pharmacy and you can only do what you can do. Are you locked in to this pharmacy, is it possible to contract with a different one? (Easier said than done in my experience, but I have seen it happen)

I work for a large ICF/DD organization that includes 12 group homes and over a hundred community living consumers that live in their own apartments or with their parents and our main office has a very large day program/work program. I am the nurse for the 3 basic developmental group homes in the county I work in (we have a small satellite office for our county), so all together I coordinate health care for 24 individuals. With the new Medicaid Waiver changes headed our way I anticipate also picking up the community living clients in our county as well, lucky for me we only have 8 CL clients.

I have a bunch of trainings and info I can pass on to you that is specific to med administration, it took a lot of blood, sweat and (my) tears lol, but our med errors have reduced by 80% over the past year. I actually got interrogated by a surveyor for not having enough med errors, I whipped my trainings out and bored her into giving up on that one. What kills me though is that the number one error I see is omission, that is irritating-how do you just not give a med that you have given every day for the past year...it's mystifying. If I am not snowed in tomorrow and I can make it in to work (we have a huge snow storm brewing and I have an hour commute on country roads) I will gather up my info and pass it on to you. If I am snowed in, I will try to do it from memory from home, at least that will keep me busy! What is your agency like/what are your duties at work?

If I am not snowed in tomorrow and I can make it in to work (we have a huge snow storm brewing and I have an hour commute on country roads) I will gather up my info and pass it on to you. If I am snowed in, I will try to do it from memory from home, at least that will keep me busy!

Please e-mail me at phillipswillis.sarah at gmail dot com. Would love to see what you have to share and have someone to discuss DD nursing stuff with!

No problem, I will send it to you this weekend. I wanted to post earlier, but in the midst of our nasty, snowy weather we ended up having a surveyor come on Tuesday for the annual survey of one of my group homes. Of course, I was snowed in Tuesday and Wednesday, so I didn't even get to get in to see her until yesterday, but I was fielding calls from panicky staff the entire time. I can't figure out why folks panic, I am grateful for surveyors because if I am doing something incorrectly I want to know how I should be doing it. I shudder to think what could happen if we weren't regulated, monitored and held accountable. The survey went very well, she only had a couple questions for me that I was able to easily answer and provided documentation to back it up. She ended up exiting yesterday afternoon and all is well.

I would love to see what you came up with also.

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