When one of your patients is getting help from a care provider, you want to do your part to ensure your patient gets the right medication, at the right time, and at the right dose through repackaged medicine.
Because care providers have many duties, any help you can provide to make their job easier is a plus.
Definition of a Care Provider?
Care givers can be family members who take care of their loved ones who may be sick or disabled. Care givers may also be paid helpers who have training in this field. Care givers are not just nurses or therapists.
The use of care givers is on the rise. They have a range of responsibilities including grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking and helping patients with medication. It’s this last duty that repackaged medicine can be a huge advantage.
Repackaged Medicine Can Be Dispensed at Point of Care
Repackaged medicine can be dispensed by you at the point of care. This can save both the care provider, the patient, and you substantial amounts of time because you no longer must deal with pharmacies.
It can take an additional two or more hours when a care provider must travel to the pharmacy and wait, and wait, and wait.
Dispensing in-office allows the care provider to retrieve the patient’s medication upon checkout. Providing this service can also mean increased revenue for your practice.
Easy Administration of Drugs
Repackaged medicine come in containers that separate the medication and label them, so the care giver can simply choose the medication that matches the date for administration.
For instance, if the packaging labels the pills according to the day of the week, the caregiver simply must pop out the medicine that coincides with the day. If a pill is labeled “Monday”, then the care giver will give that pill to the patient on Monday.
Care givers can easily see if patients have missed any doses or if they have taken too many while not in their care. In this way, repackaged medicine can prevent issues with care givers making mistakes with medication.
Avoid Overdosing and Under-dosing
Overdosing means a patient has taken too much of their medication, causing reactions such as seizures or vomiting. Overdosing can also lead to death.
Overdoses often happen due to patients forgetting whether they have taken their medication for the day. When they forget, they often take the medication twice, just to be sure they don’t miss a dose. This action creates an overdose.
Unfortunately, overdoses are more common than they need to be.
Repackaged medicine helps caregivers and patients know exactly how many pills they have taken and when they took them due to the elevated level of labeling capabilities.
Under-dosing, or not taking their medication enough, can also have negative effects. If a person is prescribed blood thinners but does not take them on a regular basis, they are at a higher risk for fatality if they were in a situation that caused them to bleed a lot.
Patients who have care givers are likely to experience falls or minor accidents. If not taking repackaged medicine properly, accidents can turn into unexpected deaths.
Patient Compliance
Repackaged medicine can help ensure patients are taking their medications correctly. It makes it easy for care givers to dispense and they don’t have to spend time sorting and counting pills to make sure your patient is on schedule.
Patients start showing signs of getting healthier. They report feeling better and being able to participate more actively in daily activities.
You are meeting your goals as a physician when your patient outcomes increase. You too can feel good about the way you practice medicine. How healthy your patients become partially depends on how well you do your job.
Caregivers can give you accurate reports on patient compliance and discuss with you any struggles they may be having. This helps because patients aren’t always truthful. Not because they aren’t honest, but sometimes they just don’t remember.
No Medication Errors
Repackaged medicine is created in a facility that undergoes strict quality control processes. The guidelines they follow must pass federal regulations. This means companies have specific steps they must abide when repackaging.
The environment of the facility is cleaner than any pharmacy. They are held to stricter guidelines than pharmacies. The equipment used to repackage is state of the art, as well as the security protecting the products.
Pharmacy technician are busy all day long processing prescription orders. They do not have the extensive training a pharmacist has and sometimes this becomes evident.They make errors.
Occasionally, technicians mistake one medicine for another that is similar in appearance. Or, they fill the wrong dose. Some have even given patients the medication that is supposed to go to a different patient.
Repackaging medicine prevents errors in the process.
Better Education
Care givers need knowledge on the repackaged medicine they are administering to patients. They need to know what to expect if the patient has a negative reaction. They need to know signs and symptoms for a possible drug interaction.
Care givers are given much better medication education with repackaged medicine than by traditional methods.
Consulting with the doctor directly is one of the best educational benefits. Pharmacists are busy. Patients and care givers know this and are reluctant to ask questions at the pharmacy.
At the point of care, however, care givers feel more comfortable, less rushed and like privacy is important. They are more likely to ask questions imperative to the correct treatment of your patient.
Educational material with repackaged medications offers information on the origin of the medicine, what it is used to treat, how to administer it, who to call for more information and your contact information and instructions.
Your patients deserve quality care and the best form of medications available. Repackaged medications offer both your patient and their caregivers the best in quality, ease of administration, and less room for error.
Repackaged medicine makes it easier for care givers to keep your patients compliant, improving their overall health, and helping them be successful in reaching treatment goals.
Most of all, they show your patient they are important enough to receive the very best.