Should medication aides exist?

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 psych. rehab nursing, float pool.

Bradley, I respect your study, but if somehow you are equating that study must then mean med errors never happen in a hospital because only license people give out medications.

I welcome you to come sit in the monthly meeting of our system in which errors are discussed and determination is made if they are nursing process errors, versus systems errors.

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Specializes in Med Surg, LTC, Home Health.
must then mean med errors never happen in a hospital because only license people give out medications.

oops. i just took part of a quote from an earlier post. i in no way meant that med errors occurred in ltc and not hospitals. (though the 800,000 from my quote are injuries and not just errors). the original quote was this:

according to the institute of medicine of the national academies, medication errors are among the most common medical errors, harming at least 1.5 million people every year. studies indicate that 800,000 preventable drug-related injuries occur each year in long-term care settings. the committee noted that these are likely underestimates.

this study is referring to med errors committed by doctors and nurses. imagine if the concept of the medication aide is allowed to spread throughout the us what these numbers could rise to.

the 5 r's should be increased to 6....right drug, right dose, right route, right time, right patient, right qualifications.:)

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Specializes in Day program consultant DD/MR.

The 5 R's should be increased to 6....right drug, right dose, right route, right time, right patient, right qualifications.:)

We were taught 6 rights in school

right drug

right dose

right route

ritght time

right patient

right documentation

I like right qualification too.

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studies indicate that 800,000 preventable drug-related injuries occur each year in long-term care settings.

elderly people deserve the same level of competent care as everybody else.

yet no one has ever heard of a medication aide in a hospital.:)

but how many of those are caused by nurses vs. med aides? every throws around the large number of errors but always fails to indicate which were caused by nurses.

plus, how many errors are prevented due to more people on the florr passing fewer meds...

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Specializes in Med Surg, LTC, Home Health.
But how many of those are caused by nurses vs. Med aides? Every throws around the large number of errors but always fails to indicate which were caused by nurses.

Plus, how many errors are PREVENTED due to more people on the florr passing fewer meds...

This statistic is from the Institute of Medicine. I am not throwing around the large number of "errors". As my very last post clearly states, these are "injuries". As far as i am concerned, all these injuries were perpetrated by actual nurses. After all, the 800,000 committed in LTC are out of 1.5 million. If doctors and nurses can generate this many medication related injuries, just imagine the numbers those with 4 days of training could attain.

How many errors are prevented by having more people passing fewer meds? That may sound like a logical question to someone that is not a nurse. When i gave meds to 35 patients, most of which were polypharmacy, the 35th patient received the same educated care that the 1st one received. This is not a baseball game. Though we do get tired, it is not like on the 30th patient we start making a bunch of mistakes and have to call in a relief pitcher. We can still read the MAR (that is the document where the medications are listed for each patient), the meds, and perform assessments. I would rather have a super-tired nurse take care of me than an individual with 4 days of training any day. If you have read this thread, then you have read a few med aides themselves say that it is a dangerous concept.

If you have decided to become a med aide yourself ( 4 days is surely better than years of intense training and for the same job!), then i apologize if this thread has offended you.

When i went from a CNA to an LPN, i couldnt believe the abyss of difference in knowledge. (My CNA course was longer that the med aide course.) The only way to actually understand the magnificent difference between nurse and aide, it to have been both. So i will wait for you to understand.:)

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There WAS a day when patients had less than 5 medications daily.

Today average patient discharged from a SNF to homecare has over TEN oral meds with multiple admin times.....been tracking this issue at my agency.

Ten meds x 25 patients typical SNF unit = over 250 meds in ONE AM med pass....

Know of a place- census 200- 4 units with 50 residents each- one med aide each unit.

Yes, they probably average 10 meds apiece. 500 meds am pass.

Plus, med aides have been assigned accuchecks, insulin administration, rt treatments and stage 1 treatments.

Due to the work load- administration has changed the medication times. Instead of 0800, 0900, 1200, etc, med passes are now a.m., noon, p.m., and h.s.

So, as long as resident gets a.m. meds after 0530 and before 1145, they are considered in compliance.!!!!!!

Nursing staff have pretty much given up.

When I registered my shock- was informed by Admin that the average joe takes his medicine like this-general times, and since it is their home it should be less regimented.

State run facility.

Yep- they are quickly running out of nurses, and rely on med aides.

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Specializes in Rehab, LTC, Peds, Hospice.
Know of a place- census 200- 4 units with 50 residents each- one med aide each unit.

Yes, they probably average 10 meds apiece. 500 meds am pass.

Plus, med aides have been assigned accuchecks, insulin administration, rt treatments and stage 1 treatments.

Due to the work load- administration has changed the medication times. Instead of 0800, 0900, 1200, etc, med passes are now a.m., noon, p.m., and h.s.

So, as long as resident gets a.m. meds after 0530 and before 1145, they are considered in compliance.!!!!!!

Nursing staff have pretty much given up.

When I registered my shock- was informed by Admin that the average joe takes his medicine like this-general times, and since it is their home it should be less regimented.

State run facility.

Yep- they are quickly running out of nurses, and rely on med aides.

Of course the nurses gave up. I can't believe even the med aides put up with that!:down:

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Of course the nurses gave up. I can't believe even the med aides put up with that!:down:

Since when does unlicensed aides administer insulin, do sterile dressing changes, etc. These, along with medication administration, are professional duties of licensed nurses.

Folks, wake up!! The PTB are slowly, but surely, deskilling the entire professional practice of nursing!! If we don't take charge of our profession, we will not have a profession to fight for. I have said it before, and I will say it again. We need to increase our entry into practice for RNs and LPNs. The public is not fighting this because they do not see the difference between professional nurses and unlicensed personnel. There is not enough education time to make it seem like there really is a difference. And nurses are hamstung not having workplace protection to make a big enough stink to educate the public.

PTs, OTs all increased their educational requirements. They are not having their professional practice deskilled, are they? They fight tooth and nail to keep their practice to themselves. Why aren't nurses doing the same thing? Wake up and smell the coffee.

Lindarn, RN, BSN ,CCRN

Spokane, Washington

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I am currently a nursing student and our teacher recently assigned a project concerning medication aides. We are having a lot of trouble finding current research, within the last five years, on this subject. We are opposed to the idea, but cannot find the literature to back that up. If anyone could give us some suggestions on where to look, that would be very helpful.

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Specializes in psych. rehab nursing, float pool.

ejm, here are some sites i found, i am curious why are you against medication aides. while i have never worked with one. i can not say i am against them. just curious as to why you feel not even being a nurse yet that they should not exhist.

http://www.hhs.state.ne.us/crl/nursing/ma/ma.htm

medication aide

effective 05/06/08 application, renewal, and testing fees will be $18.00.

a medication aide (ma) may assist (1) competent individuals, (2) caretakers who are parents, foster parents, family, friends or legal guardians, and (3) licensed health care professionals to administer medications. a medication aide must be on the medication aide registry kept by the licensing & regulatory affairs division. (continued description)

http://www.cvtech.org/el%20reno/short-term% 20courses/medication%20aide%20© canadian medication aides

http://www.accd.edu/spc/admin/ce/medaide%20application%20packet.pdf texas medication aide

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When i went from a CNA to an LPN, i couldnt believe the abyss of difference in knowledge. (My CNA course was longer that the med aide course.) The only way to actually understand the magnificent difference between nurse and aide, it to have been both. So i will wait for you to understand.:)

I am in no way offended...

I just wanted to know why the actual numbers in existence show med aides making less errors.

I also would not want a med aide in a hospital but in many LTC facilities I know for a fact that nurses are running just to get the meds passed and treatments done and charting done and every little thing the aides need done...

I know they make errors because I've seen them. I've also seen med techs make errors. I've also seen doctors that cut off the wrong leg after tons more school than RN's...

Like i stated earlier, here med techs only pass meds in assisted living where residents are supposed to be able to take them themselves. I still can't see anything wrong with that. Virginia does not allow med aides in nursing facilities however.

That's all. You have not offended me at all. I am only a med aide to have practice passing meds and to learn more meds. I am still going to school as I would rather be an RN than a CNA, Med Aide or LPN...

:)

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Thank you for the websites - they were helpful. Obviously, I do not know enough to make a definitive answer on why I do not agree with med. aides, but I know that I would never want myself or my family to be given meds by an aide. I feel that medications are a huge responsibility - before and after the med(s) is given. There is just so much to know, and even coming out of nursing school - I know it is going to be overwhelming. I think that medication aides are not getting to the root of the problem - we need more nurses, we need more seats in schools, etc. We need to get more nurses in LTC. I know as a CNA I did not have the knowledge base needed. Things that I learned in nursing school are making things clear - important things - that should have been emphasized and taught to me as CNA. Ok, I am just rambling.

There needs to be more studies done about medication aides and how they are helping our system and how they are hindering it.

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