Medical Reconciliation
Introduction
Achieving the highest standards of preventing harm and averting drug effects in students does remain a top priority for healthcare providers. It is subject to this that many healthcare facilities across the country have adopted a form of reconciling medicines at all stages of care, which is termed as medication reconciliation. It is a process where there is a creation of an accurate list that contains all the possible medications that are being taken by a patient. The list will include the drug name, dosage, and frequency of taking them. The list is then compared with the list against the physician orders on the stages of patient care from admission to discharge. It is in this way that medication reconciliation is achieved, and patient safety is assured. It is subject to this that it is identified that some patients do not adhere to the medicine that they have been provided with and this problem will be discussed in the paper and the solutions to the problems
Problems Facing Medical Adherence
Problems related to medical adherence are on a case to case basis depending on the patients. Some will claim one reason, for example, and others that will claim a different reason altogether. The problems, therefore, include firstly, a healthy feeling by the patient after a time of taking medicine but before finishing the dosage. Patients can start feeling as if they are healthier and well and therefore stop taking medicine. Secondly, there is an issue of some medicine being too expensive, and consequently, a patient is forced to look for means to take his medicine, which may include taking a half a pill daily in order for it to last long. Lastly, there is an issue of accessibility of the pharmacy and which is mainly in older patients. Age can be a hindrance to accessing the pharmacy in order to get refills of their medicine, and as a result, the patients stop taking medication as soon as their drugs are done.
Remedying the Problems
The different problems related to medical adherence have different and specific solutions. The solutions address the problems individually, seeking to better the conditions for the patients. Firstly, the issue of the patient feeling healthy and quitting taking medicines can be resolved by the healthcare professionals taking it upon themselves to ensure that their patients understand the extent of the danger of the disease in their body if it is not treated thoroughly. The healthcare professional must employ the teach-back method to make sure that the patient understands. On the second problem with the high costs of medicines, healthcare professionals are proficient enough to know the generic medicines that could serve the same purpose as the prescribed-but-expensive medicine, and, therefore, they can prescribe these instead. Lastly, on the issue of accessibility, the healthcare providers could suggest mail options where the patients could get their medicines mailed to them whenever they need them.
Reflective Response
The problems relating to medical adherence are common in daily practice and are among the leading causes of readmissions. There are several cases where patients do not take their doses or end up taking medicine, which has not been prescribed, for example, Jeremiah Valentine in the Video under study. The resultant case of such instances is that the patients will fall ill as it was in the case, and they will end up being seeking healthcare services if not being readmitted for something that could have been avoided. It is, therefore, essential to note that measures to educate the public on the importance of medical adherence will be instrumental in ensuring that the cases as one presented by the study are not a common scenario.
Conclusion
The study on medical adherence for patient safety may seem enlightening, but it would be of no value if the measures are not put in place to ensure strict adherence to the dosage. This is important following the strict measures as placed by the Affordable Care Act on hospitals on matters of readmission. It will also be essential to ensure that the goals of Healthy People 2020 are achieved in the process of making specific that medical adherence is observed.