I intended to continue the discussion about high-risk medications in this post. But, October is here already, and this month happens to be the 24th annual “Talk about Medications Month”, sponsored by the National Council on Patient Information and Education (NCPIE). This year’s slogan is “Communication is Key”, and the theme is to use high-quality communication at every teachable moment to ensure maximum benefit and minimum risk from medications. The NCPIE site is chock full of resources, many especially focused on senior population. If your agency is focusing efforts on improving patient teaching, there are links to a number of helpful teaching tools, including a pill card tool that can be customized and found here.
The nifty thing about this pill card tool is that it has various templates that can be customized for pill shapes, and also common images for pill use, e.g. sleep.
And, if your patients or their family members have computer access, you can teach them to produce a customized pill card with the same link. Looking at these materials reminded me of the days at the VNA-LA when nurses used to organize patient meds in egg crates-before there was so much concern about salmonella!
October is also Health Literacy Month – these tools can be very useful for patients with low or no literacy skills. It would be great to hear from any of you who have used these tools successfully.
Dennee Frey, CHAMP Pharmacy Expert
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[...] To read more about strategies that work, read the CHAMP Medication Management Evidence Brief. My 10/5/09 post also includes links to some useful [...]