Verifying meds on admission

[peace_solace]

Hi all,

I'm a new grad and I'm also new to home health. I'm in my third week at the company and enjoying it a lot. They have a very extensive orientation and have a lot of support available so I feel comfortable working there as a new grad.

My question is, what are your policies regarding verifying medications upon admission? It seems to me that every time an admission occurs, there is usually a mix-up on the meds because of a recent hospitalization, etc. The company I work for doesn't have a set policy in place -- some nurses call the MD and verify over the phone, and some print out the med list and fax it for verification. Just curious what everyone else does. It seems like kind of a mess every time we have to sort all the meds out.

Thanks!

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

Since medication reconciliation is a Joint Commission regulation, your company should have a written policy on how to verify admission meds. We are supposed to call the doctor on admission to let him know we've admitted his patient to home care services and verify the medications. Many times the doc okays on the phone only to change some things once he sees the printed copy.

If it's a rehab only admit, the therapist just gets a list of the meds and sends it into the office for one of the assitant team leader to enter into the computer and have it sent to the doc for okay.

[caliotter3]

I don't do admissions and therefore have never verified meds as part of that process. However, each and every time I do a home visit I verify the meds, being particularly careful and thorough on my first visit. I have found some real doozies of discrepancies and routinely fix these oversights. The latest med updates I got involved with were changes and errors that had not been corrected in at least five years (by the paperwork trail and verbalization of the patient), even though the patient had been seen by agency nurses during that entire time. It certainly would have been a lot easier if the admitting nurse had properly followed up with this patient's meds on admission.