Medication Aides....

No because medication aides usually cannot give insulin, high risk meds or "lab linked " meds like heparin, PRN meds that require nursing judgement/assessment. In the few places I've been that utilized med aides (group homes, assisted living) they were utilized properly and took some of the burden of a routine med pass off of nursing staff. Nursing had to review glucose results, labs, vitals, complete assessments.

I don't know that they'd take over the role of LPN, but when I worked with the Navy, they utilized their corpsmen to pass meds in a similar role as JustBeachyNurse described. I was never comfortable with it, however, and never let them do any of my med passes, no matter how "simple" the drug. Even the common drugs can have nasty side effects and contraindications that only a nurse would pick up on.

In Ontario, a new rule is going into effect in Jan to stop med aids from giving out meds. Hopefully this will help. A lot of places take people off the street and put them in charge of meds.

In Ontario, a new rule is going into effect in Jan to stop med aids from giving out meds. Hopefully this will help. A lot of places take people off the street and put them in charge of meds.

Here's hoping that will filter downwind to the U.S.

In Ontario, a new rule is going into effect in Jan to stop med aids from giving out meds. Hopefully this will help. A lot of places take people off the street and put them in charge of meds.

This is OT but that's where I feel like we got most of our sitters from when I worked in the hospital. Really felt like the admin walked down the street and said to the people who live under the bridge selling meth at 2am "hey, you're awake at 2am, will you come sit next to a patient for $8/hr?"

I feel as though I need to research more on medical assistants and their impact on nursing/healthcare...

I work in a ICF/MR facility (group home for disabled) and we rely heavily on med aides. We have a lot of clients on hydro codone as well. I just heard yesterday that hydro codone is going to change from a class 3 controlled substance to a class 2. Thereby med aides will not be able to administer it, only licensed nurses. It will be interesting to see what happens.

As a CNA, I would not be comfortable dishing out meds on my own. I worked at a nursing home very briefly where they would only use medication assistants if the nurses were short staffed or something came up where they were swamped with other work. They allowed some of the CNAs with their MA cert to jump in impromptu in those instances.

Now that I've been on a geriatric psych unit, the meds are only accessible with a nurse's badge and we do not employ MAs. Nurses are the only ones who give out meds, except in rare instances where confused patients are not responding well to the nurse/think the nurse is someone they knew and didn't like, etc. In that case, the nurse let's one of us try (oral meds only) while the nurse is standing right there.

I'll venture a guess to say this has a lot to do with individual state legislation more than individual facility policies. If anyone knows specifics on that please correct me.