Legislating Assistive Personnel to Administer Medication

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

ana capital update, april 30th 2007

legislating assistive personnel to administer medication

is the use of assistive personnel, trained to administer medications the best approach in promoting safe, quality care during a nursing shortage?

currently there are eleven states which permit the administration of medications in select settings by assistive personnel, given completion of the required training, and in 2007, nine additional states have introduced legislation to authorize the practice. some nurses say they are happy to give this "task" away. but is medication administration a task, and what does delegation to assistive personnel mean for the nurse?

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[fultzymom]

Ohio currently uses Medication Aides et when we found this out at our facility, not many nurse's were happy about it. I do not want to be responsible for someone who took a couple weeks training on med administration. There is much more to passing meds than just the five rights. You must know how the meds will effect the patient. You have to know what to monitor for before giving certain medications. You have to know what to watch for in the instances of adverse effects. If I am not the one giving the medications, I will not know what they are taking, what to monitor for, ect. We were relieved to find that our DON said that she is not a fan of this project/solution to the nursing shortage. She said she would rather pass meds herself if we were short than have someone who just took a brief class passing them. THANK GOD!!

[grammyr]

Louisiana legislature is currently considering this with LSNA approval and cooperation. There are stipulations the LSNA is requesting in supporting this bill 1. there will be no reduction of licensed personnel,2. the state board of nursing will oversee and regulate training, 3. the only meds they will give are routing po meds. No prn, injections or narcotics.

This scares me!!!!!!!!!!!

[Nursechick07]

VERY SCARY! How is this going to save me time when I will feel the need to back-track that meds were given, and on time, and what about BP, cardiac, and other serious meds beside narcs? I just don't know about this!:uhoh21:

[txspadequeenRN, BSN, RN]

texas uses medication aides and this is a hot subject with me. i think the topic of using medication aides would be ok but the whole educational plan has to be totally revised before this can be safe...

[Simplepleasures]

texas uses medication aides and this is a hot subject with me. i think the topic of using medication aides would be ok but the whole educational plan has to be totally revised before this can be safe...

i think having med techs is fine,especially in nursing homes, but i agree that the training is very much lacking, and needs to have a comprehensive program that gives the graduate of this program a liscense and oversight by the state liscensing agencies.

[bayouland]

Louisiana legislature is currently considering this with LSNA approval and cooperation. There are stipulations the LSNA is requesting in supporting this bill 1. there will be no reduction of licensed personnel,2. the state board of nursing will oversee and regulate training, 3. the only meds they will give are routing po meds. No prn, injections or narcotics.

This scares me!!!!!!!!!!!

Greetings from Louisiana! First just a little bit of clarification regarding the post I've quoted. The legislation referenced did not include stipulations regarding reductin in licensed personnel. As those of you who work in the LTC setting know, staffing hours are $$$$ and in order to deal with that issue in legislation, one would have to look at increasing the minimal hours in the licensing standards which would require separate legislation in and of itself. Back to the issue at hand, the ACT referenced in the quote, has been approved by the House and amended in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee and unfortunately moved from the Administration of our State Board of Nursing to the Department of Health and Hospitals. However, LSNA and the State Board will remain involved via an Advisory Committee which along with DHH and other entities will through Rule Making develop the cirriculum which stipulated in the ACT is not to be less than 100 hours, and will be involved in oversight, exams, and regulation. This legislation currently awaits concurrence by the House. This is expected to take place within the next 2 days as all bills for 3rd and final reading must be heard by 6 p.m. Monday (06/25/07). My question to those of you who have experience with Medication Aides / Techs / Attendants, ect. is plese provide some input with the state your are from and who regulates and the length of program provided. [Current research indicates they have been legislated in 22 states] There has also been a study done indicating observation of 16,000 medications administered noted NO INCREASED ERRORS BY THESE INDIVIDUALS. The study is in the process of being printed and should be available in the fall of this year. Thanks, BayouLand Looking for Informaion