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Utah Home Health Care

Medication Management – Home Health

By January 19, 2022August 8th, 2022No Comments
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Active Home Health’s Prescription for Success

A simple medication error can drastically affect you or your loved ones. Home health for medication management can make all the difference.

Medications are responsible for improving health outcomes across the world. Think about the health advancements that have been made over the past decades. Medications have saved thousands of lives whether it is through the prevention or treatment of a variety of diseases. 

Even with the combined efforts of doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, people still experience harm from medications. When this happens, it is called an adverse drug event (ADE). Some of these are minor while others may have potentially long-term consequences. ADEs account for over 1 million ER visits and about 350,000 hospital admissions each year.

Who is at Risk for Adverse Drug Events?

Just like no two pills look alike, no two people react the same to a medication. Some people are more prone to have an ADE than others. One such group is the elderly. As people get older, the way that they react to medications changes. Medications that were appropriately prescribed in middle age may become unnecessary or even harmful as a patient ages. There are three main risk factors as to why this is.

Polypharmacy

The first risk factor is called polypharmacy. Polypharmacy is when one patient takes 5 or more medications. Studies have shown that the risk of experiencing an adverse drug event increases from 10% with one medication to 75% when five or more medications are used. The more medications there are, the harder it is to keep track of all the potential side effects, interactions, and dosing schedules.

Multiple Comorbidities

People over the age of 85 are 3 times more likely to have multiple comorbidities than even those aged 70 years. Some of the most common chronic medical conditions include heart, lung, kidney, and liver disease. As more and more organs are affected by a variety of diseases, the organ’s function can become impaired, changing the way medications react within a person’s body.

Age-related changes

Our bodies don’t stop changing after puberty. As we age, our bodies continue to change. Some of these changes include decreased muscle mass, increased total body fat, decreased kidney and liver function, decreased cardiac output, and decreased gastric acid secretions. Some of the most common ADEs associated with aging include GI bleeding, hypotension, falls, mental status changes and hypoglycemia.

How Home Health for Medication Management Prevents Errors?home health for medication management

With Active Home Health, you don’t have to worry about making a mistake with your medications. Our team works with your provider to help prevent medication errors in two ways. 

After a change in medication or an increase in adverse drug events, Active’s nurses can monitor, manage, and if needed, suggest changes to your prescriber about your medications. Our physical and occupational therapists will help you with any functional loss than might have occurred.

We can also help, when reasonable and necessary, with the administration of injectable medications. This is done on an ongoing, monthly basis to maintain a therapeutic range. More frequent injections could be appropriate in the initial or acute phase of the disease. Some examples of monthly injections that we can help with include testosterone and vitamin B-12 shots.

Some of the benefits of using Active’s home health services to prevent medication errors are:

  • Fewer trips to the hospital or urgent care
  • Preventing adverse drug events
  • Increased confidence to manage medications from home
  • Earlier detection of side effects
  • Improved adherence to the medication regimen
  • Decreased pill burden
  • Improved compliance with monthly injections
  • Improved quality of life

Why Choose Active Home Health for Medication Management?

Medication management with Active Home Health can make all the difference. A simple medication error can drastically affect you or your loved ones. Medication management with Active Home Health can make all the difference. Our care plans improve your quality of life. Call today to see how Active can help you prevent, rather than experience, medication errors.

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