Should medication aides exist?

Nurses Safety

Published

  1. Should medication aides exist?

    • 116
      Yes
    • 347
      No
    • 39
      Not Sure

502 members have participated

Medication aides should not exist. Nurses must band together to fight against taking our skills and giving them to under-qualified persons. Sure we are overloaded with work, but they should hire more nurses to alleviate our burden. We should never accept an unsafe, undereducated "medication aide" to assist us. If they keep giving away our skills to uneducated people, soon we will be competing against them for jobs while they are willing to take half the pay. Then who do you think companies will hire?

Do you think medication aides should exist?

Specializes in Med Surg, LTC, Home Health.
ever pass medications to 30 to 40 residents, do treatments on 10 patients, do all your skilled charting on 15 people and provide hospice care to 5 dying patients while being short 2 cna's...then you will be grate full for a cma....

you have the right and obligation to the well being of your patients to refuse any assignment you feel to be unsafe. there are numerous staffing agencies out there that can send cna's and nurses right away with a simple phone call. the more you work short, the more money your facility makes. as the stories in this thread prove, advocating for medication aides leaves great potential for risk of harm to the patients that we have sworn to protect. nursing home reform is greatly needed, but this is going in the opposite direction!:twocents:

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Specializes in LTC, case mgmt, agency.

This happened at begining of shift my first day on this unit before knowing any of the pts. But like I said, the RN was not concerned. I later read the MAR which states not to give if AP less than 60. If I'd known this patient was getting digoxin and/or the med-aide was going to give it anyway without telling the RN first about the heart rate, I would have stopped her.

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Specializes in ICU, PICC Nurse, Nursing Supervisor.

boy you must have it good...most nursing homes i have ever been at don't use staffing agencies. i have been a agency nurse however and spent my time going back and forth from a selected few in my area ( which is a big area). the more you use agency the more your facility looses and since agency nurses are so very expensive they are not as widely used in ltc as one may think....i will agree nursing home reform is greatly needed ...

you have the right and obligation to the well being of your patients to refuse any assignment you feel to be unsafe. there are numerous staffing agencies out there that can send cna's and nurses right away with a simple phone call. the more you work short, the more money your facility makes. as the stories in this thread prove, advocating for medication aides leaves great potential for risk of harm to the patients that we have sworn to protect. nursing home reform is greatly needed, but this is going in the opposite direction!:twocents:
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This happened at begining of shift my first day on this unit before knowing any of the pts. But like I said, the RN was not concerned. I later read the MAR which states not to give if AP less than 60. If I'd known this patient was getting digoxin and/or the med-aide was going to give it anyway without telling the RN first about the heart rate, I would have stopped her.

You did tell the RN and she shrugged it off.

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Specializes in Med Surg, LTC, Home Health.
So I watched the med aide take the apical pulse and give the med. I asked afterward what was her heart rate. Amazingly she calmly replies 50. The RN did not look worried either. The RN said, " Oh, she always runs low like that." I told the med-aide she was never ever to pass any cardiac meds for me. She then said " What does digoxin have to do with the heart?"

the problem here wasn't the aide. It was the nurse.

I would have to say that the aide was a big problem as well. If that pt was in her room, the nurses may have never even seen this discrepancy. Melinurse was completely aware that the reason she "always runs low like that" and always acted lethargic, was likely because she needed her dosage lowered. The RN was definitely at fault, partly for his/her faith in the medication aide, because for the aide not to know that digoxin is a cardiac med in the first place, and thus why she was taking the apical pulse, only substantiates why 75% of the voters so far believe that medication aides should not exist. The severe lack of knowledge makes it an unsafe practice.

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Specializes in LTC.

I live in a city with many large hospitals and too few nurses. Med aides were tried here several years ago and it was a very big failure. The Attorneys loved it and the hospitals paid dearly. Personally I think it's a great mistake and a very dangerous practice. Meds are constantly changing and it is difficult for us to keep up with sometimes let alone a person who took a short course. It's also not fair to them, to give them a job that they aren't qualified to do.

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Medications should only be given out by a licensed professional.

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Specializes in Home Care, Hospice, OB.

this has been educational for me, especially as i am preparing to teach my first med aide class--but don't get too upset just yet....

here in va, med aides may not work in a snf ever. those that work in alf's have a 68 hour training course. i am teaching a group of individuals (sponsers) who will be providing residental in home care to one mentally retarded adult each. they also take cpr, first aid, and many, many others. this course, like for those in adult day care centers and group homes, is 32 hours.

having just taken the trainer course, i can say that i hated the idea of med aides in any group setting.....until i found out that the options were not "med aide vs a nurse", but "med aide vs a person with zero training"!!! that is why the va bon took this on, so there would be at least some training involved, however limited.

until the long term care lobby is controlled, they will take the fastest and cheapest route out there. i'd love to know how other bon's address this issue...

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Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.
if the nurse refuses to work with the med aide then they get the med pass. they are not going to hire a nurse in place of a med aide just because the unhappy nurse wants them too. they are penny pinching. most ltc nurses are grateful just to have a med aide period the thought of a nurse passing pills...why that would be like walking on streets of gold. ever pass medications to 30 to 40 residents, do treatments on 10 patients, do all your skilled charting on 15 people and provide hospice care to 5 dying patients while being short 2 cna's...then you will be grate full for a cma....

i mean no disrespect, but in my humble opinion, you have been conditioned into feeling/believing this way. no one should have to work under those conditions. if there is not enough staff to provide safe and adequate care, then they should not be in business. i choose to believe they would find the adequately trained staff if they wanted to.

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I really have to agree. And, another question, why is it that these LTC patients don't deserve the higher level of safety during medication administration that is provided by a licensed nurse? It's inexcusable. I have a good friend who manages an Alzheimer's unit. She is constantly writing up her med-techs: leaving meds on the bedside or table unadministered, signing for meds that aren't in the building, unlocked cart... No matter how much inservice is provided, the understanding of a licensed nurse is not obtained. Good topic. Thanks.

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I mean no disrespect, but in my humble opinion, you have been conditioned into feeling/believing this way. No one should have to work under those conditions. If there is not enough staff to provide safe and adequate care, then they should not be in business. I choose to believe they would find the adequately trained staff if they wanted to.

Ouch. I have to disagree. It isn't conditioning- it is reality. It is so easy to define what should be... and most all of us agree- but...

Millions of LTC residents are given medication by med aides. Millions of ALF residents are given meds by med aids-or untrained persons.

True- it isn't a perfect situation, but no one has presented any solution, except to say "refuse" or "hire more nurses".

I don't know any nurse who would work as a med aid- it is horrendous.

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Specializes in telemetry, med-surg, home health, psych.

I have never worked with a med-aide...but I don't think that it would be practical at all....I would not feel comfortable one bit....I have LPN's passing meds in my facility and it works out great !!!

Added tid-bit----how about CMT's??? I went to have an IVP done and two different "techs" at the hospital tried to put an IV in...no luck and I have great veins....Finally, I demanded that they find an RN or I would do it myself !!!! After waiting 20 min. for them to find one, she came and zipped it right in...I thought I was in a car garage getting repairs with all the

"certified medical technicians" around and NO NURSES !!!!

What is that all about????

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