Filling Pillkeepers for the public

[BjOnrs]

I am a LVN with 30+years experience who is semi-retired. I have been working as a supervisor for a non medical Provider service in supervising field staff in compliance of personal care, cooking and housekeeping duties. This is just on the edge of nursing without really getting into the REAL stuff. I have noticed multiple times our clients do not have anyone to fill pillkeepers for them and a lot of the problems they have are caused by not having their medicine as the doctor prescribed available. Our company can hand the already filled pillkeeper to the client to take, BUT can't be responsible for filling the keeper. I have been wondering about providing a "Business" that fills pillkeepers for the public with oral, sublingual or suppositories. NO shots but I could conceiveably do transdermal patches. My wonder is does this cross the line with being a nurse where I would be responsible for interactions changes in client condition etc. that a nurse with a home health agency or other facility would beresponsible to monitor and report. Since this is not government funded and would be private pay, I wonder how all this would appply. My Nursing practice act doesn't really address this specificaly. Anyone have any thoughts.

[Blackcat99]

:) My parents use to have a nurse come to the house and fill up their pillkeepers. She was the office nurse of my parents doctor. I don't know if they do this service everywhere or not. I think it would be a great idea and would be very helpful for the elderly.

[boggle, ASN, RN]

An interesting idea. There is a need for this service. Have you thought about the charge for such a service? I can see the job of filling pillkeepers opening the door for educating clients about there meds too. You would certainly discover problems, mistakes with clients make with med administration. Your job could broaden.

Good luck with your idea.

[BjOnrs]

An interesting idea. There is a need for this service. Have you thought about the charge for such a service? I can see the job of filling pillkeepers opening the door for educating clients about there meds too. You would certainly discover problems, mistakes with clients make with med administration. Your job could broaden.

Good luck with your idea.

Thanks I had thought, as you suggested, about the education part. When I worked at an Adult Day care as a "fill In nurse" I found LOTS of mistakes made by patients and docs alike, but most of those people were not teachable. This could be a better situation. Thanks for your encouragement

[purplemania, BSN, RN]

I think this could be a worthwhile service. As for legalities, I sure don't know but would ask home health agencies who deal with this patient population often. Good luck! I think the hard part would be getting paid for your service.

[cnyrn]

Here, the county visiting nurses will provide this service. One elderly lady came in with pulse 30, seems she took tenormin 50mg from her primary MD and atenolol 50mg from her cardiologist on a daly basis, no clue they were the same thing- how do these things happen? Anyways, she was d/c'd with a visiting nurse referral.