Med Discharge Orders

[joamy2]

How does your hospital handle medication discharge orders? Does the physician have to write out all the home medications or just write 'resume home meds'? Does your hospital have a policy about this? Any help is greatly appreciated!!!

[Fluff01]

The hospital that I'm employed the nurses do the following: once the physician has written the orders for medications, if they 're new meds we will call them in to the pharmacy that the patient uses. We will also write write the meds out on the discharge summary with directions and if they are to resume their old meds, we tell them to continue with them and not write them out. Hope this helps.

Fluff01, RN

[nursemaa]

According to JCAHO and our hospital policy, "resume home meds" is not acceptable. We have a form that we list the patients' home meds on when they are admitted- the physician is supposed to mark on the form which meds the patient should continue.

Our docs write "resume home meds" anyway, then the nurse has to waste time getting clarification. Sometimes if the physician hasn't specified, the nurses write "resume home meds" on the discharge sheet, but then they aren't following policy.

[pwp1289]

i work in a va med center and are totally computerized--mds order current meds and they are sent to pharmacy--nurses used to do the d/c med teaching but pharmacy wanted to do "what they do best" so pts now go to pharmacy for meds (the va supplies most all meds) and all med instructions--it really cuts down d/c time and many headaches we used to got through