UAPs administering meds

Nurses Safety

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:cool: Please help! The Facility where I work is going to initiate UAPs administering meds. I want to know if a nurse can refuse to be responsible for this. The facility is calling them Med Techs but my understanding is that Med Techs go to school to learn about meds and the administration of meds. UAPs on the other hand do not. Am I being too conservative to go along with this practice? This situation has caused a turmoil at work.

Thanks for any advice.

Melinda Sue

To all of you out there:

The nurses and CNAs all had a meeting this AM with our DON. She put it bluntly; we will be working with "Med Techs", we are responsible for what the Techs do, and we should be grateful to have an extra set of hands and feet to do the work!

I am in the process of writing to the NCBON for a copy of The Nurse Practice Act since I have not been able to access the PDF files on the BON website. I am also updating my resume!

The bottom line is all about money; it's certainly not about good nursing care. Let's face it; even nurses are not infallible, but we have at least been educated and had to demonstrate our abilities before we graduated! After graduation, we had to pass boards in order to receive a license to practice nursing! Now we've been told that an Aide without any clinical experience is to be passing meds. Heaven help us all!

Gail in NC

All about money-How disheartening!

:o

Originally posted by Melinda Sue

To all of you out there:

The nurses and CNAs all had a meeting this AM with our DON. She put it bluntly; we will be working with "Med Techs", we are responsible for what the Techs do, and we should be grateful to have an extra set of hands and feet to do the work!

I am in the process of writing to the NCBON for a copy of The Nurse Practice Act since I have not been able to access the PDF files on the BON website. I am also updating my resume!

The bottom line is all about money; it's certainly not about good nursing care. Let's face it; even nurses are not infallible, but we have at least been educated and had to demonstrate our abilities before we graduated! After graduation, we had to pass boards in order to receive a license to practice nursing! Now we've been told that an Aide without any clinical experience is to be passing meds. Heaven help us all!

Gail in NC

RUN! Don't walk out the front door! Your DON is selling you woof tickets, I'll bet she wouldn't put HER name after those UAPs when they pass meds. Thankful for the extra hands, my hind quarters. She has forgotten her nursing roots. There are PLENTY of Nursing jobs here in NC, turn in your notice and find someplace to work that won't jeopardize your license and career. You know, a well place phone call to the DFS and BON would go a long way to teach them a much needed lesson.

I did that once to a facility that used UAPs in the manner your facility is planning on using them. I was a temp Nurse at the time and they had a UAP I was supposed to sign off after, just as you have described. I refused to allow him to pass meds and did a double workload myself. Fortunately there were only 20 patients in house that day, Thanksgiving, so I was able to handle it without a problem. The next day I called DFS and the BON. Within a week they had been taken over by the State. It's not being vindictive, it is looking out for the welfare of those residents.

PM me for a copy of the NC Nursing Practice Act, I have it downloaded on my computer.

Sekar- I must ask you WHAT ARE WOOF TICKETS?

I have never in my life heard this phrase!

Is it a Southern Thing? :specs:

OOPS. Sorry, it's a deep south thing. Woof tickets are the same thing as ocean front property in Arizona or the proverbial bridge for sale in Brooklyn, NY. If you buy them, you'll be sorry. :p

But why WOOF?

Like tickets to hear coyotes howl or what? I still am not there yet...:confused:

LMAO! :roll :roll :roll I get it i get it! i'm from Texas! LOL

Specializes in Everything except surgery.

WOLF tickets- meaning when someone Crying Wolf! Acting like their going to do something, and but know all time, their not!

When I was in nursing school I worked as a CNA in an assisted living facility. We were the cooks, waitresses, room cleaners, entire facility cleaners, and med passers. We were only CNA's (certified nursing assistant) and the only med training we got was a 30 minute video on medication administration safety. I was the only CNA there going to college. I often wondered how we got away with passing the meds. The only nurse at the facility was the nurse manager who managed the CNA's. She worked banker hours. Never was a chart cosigned by her for med passing, however she was great at writing us up for the meds not given to the patients who were supposed to administer their own and forgot! Two months into that job I finally quit. Was put on night shift alone (only care person in the whole building) and was supposed to do the "cleaning" of the whole facility, pass night meds, answer lights for 30 people. My last night there had 2 falls and quit the next day. Just not safe for the patients! Mind you, others that I worked with also administered meds like antihypertensives for pt's with very low BP's, etc. All sorts of unsafe rituals!

You are definitely doing the right thing by forcing the issue until it is resolved. There is no reason why you should have to give your signiture for an unlicensed person to administer medications. I dont' see how that is saving time because you still have to take the time to double check the medication and sign it. This also puts you at risk for several liability issues especially if your signiture is there saying that you approved of the administration. It is not fair for you to have to be responsible for a task that the unlicensed working is doing that should never be delegated to them to begin with. It just doesn't make sense to me, how they can expect a nurse to be respnsible for allof her actions and then also force her to be responsible for someone elses actions when the unlisenced person isn't even trained to do the task. It seems like the hospital is trying to cut corners on paying the unlisenced personnel less money for a job that they hospital should be paying more quailfied personnel. Medication errors are a major problem that affects nurses and this is not a step in the direction to correct the situation.

I would never allow my license to back up such a situation. I am a med nurse and have taken two phrmacology courses and a medication administration specifics course and I still look up meds that I give in our hospital on a regular basis. i believe I read where med errors are the number one problem of short staffing these days and poor handwriting, misundersood verbal orders, A medication error could kill some one very easily.:eek:

UAP's shouldn't agree to this and nurses definately should not risk there licenses for this. It is an accident waiting to happen:confused:

Mattsmom, I agree with you. No way on Earth would I sign that someone else gave a med unless I was there to see it drawn up/taken out then administered properly. After that I might as well have done it myself.

Melinda, don't email, send a letter to the BON and keep a copy of it. Or call and document the date, time, and who you spoke with. There's now reason at all for you to be risking your license over this. Also isn't there some sort of regulatory agency that oversees LTCs? I wish I could think of it right now.

If you truly wish to CYA, have your letter notarized by one of your local notaries BEFORE you send it. Best of luck!

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