New trend in admission medalist??

[iluvnoodles]

Hi guys there's is a concern that I have that I wanted to share with everyone. I would appreciate your input. Hospital discharge med lists are noted to have some meds for 30 days. What I am being told is that hospital medlists will sometimes indicate a medication for a certain amount of time, but in actuality it is continuous. For example a medication will say omeprazole x30 days, "but it's actually spouse to be daily". My confusion is that, if a med says for 30 days, than its for 30 days only and we as nurses are not to assume that the doc wants to continue cuz if they wanted to they can easily say daily. When they arrive to the facility, we verify with the attending physician assigned to them and if this doc doesn't make ay changes, than I am most definetly not going to make any changes. My question is, is this is going to be a trend for nursing? Are we to assume that any medication with a stop date actually means daily? I've worked in LTC for majority of my nursing career and this is the first time I am hearing of this. Hearing what the nurses r telling me scares me and makes me question the medications I am giving. I look forward to your feedback!!

[shotcaller28]

When that happens to me I mention to the MD that it the d/c summary says "protonix 20 mg po q day for 30 days" do you want to keep it that way? If I have a res or family member tell me they usually take it q day then I also mention that to the MD when I call to verify meds. Usually takes care of the issue.

[morte, LPN, LVN]

have run into this recently. Patient was from UMASS. when the discharge summary was printed, the "30 day" proviso was carried over on one drug only and the admitting nurse missed it, and then in monthly edit, so did I. big brouhaha, was a med that would/should never have been discontinued anyway.... I am thinking it must be new computer soft ware, maybe to force the hospital docs to check on their long term residents more frequently?

[iluvnoodles]

Yes, cuz this is the first time seeing it in long term. If I see it again, Im just gonna ask the doc if they want to continue with 30 days or change to daily.

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

Ours seem to be the opposite....most of our referrals have drugs with 90 day stop dates. We always go by the discharge summary which usually indicates if the drug actually has a stop date.

[NurseGuyBri]

When we get a new admission, the nurse verifying the hospital medications with our practitioner asks for guidance. The practitioner/ physician *always* says no stop date unless it is a supplement or antibiotic/ anti-infective agent.

[NurseGuyBri]

PS - For our hospital systems here, I asked them about that. They say it has to do with how the order was entered into their E.M.R. system, and not actually a part of the order. GRAY GRAY GRAY area, I say!