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Opinion
 | | | Almost since day one we have been preaching the Gospel that any system can only be the sum of all its parts. Cut corners or leave bits out and you do not have a system. We have never believed ourselves to be a purely 'box shifting' organisation and have always stressed the importance of using systems correctly to anyone who would listen.
With over 20 years experience in this field we have come across good practise and bad practise. Used correctly, these systems are designed to cut out waste and make the business of medication administration safer not only for the patient or end user but also for the administrator. To this end, we always advocate the use of unit dose applications for third party administration. However, when the pharmacist bows to popular demand from the home and supplies a mixed medication system, (which is falsely perceived to be easier to administer), then the possibility for errors is magnified.
This is not to say that there is not a need for mixed medication packs, on the contrary. In a domiciliary setting where the patient or end user is responsible for their own medication administration, as an aid to compliance these packs can prove invaluable as an alternative to a plethora of calendar packs of all shapes and sizes and minuscule, unreadable text.
Where you have a strong, professional pharmacist who discusses the needs of the home before telling them which system he is prepared to install, (which in his professional capacity he feels is up to the job), rather than asks the home which system they want, then the probability of error is greatly reduced.
In the bad old days, the best a home could hope for from some pharmacists was a cardboard box full of medication being dumped at their establishment with little or no further intervention from the pharmacy in question.
If nothing else, these systems have given the pharmacist the opportunity to get more involved with the home on a more professional level and, if installed and used correctly and with proper training can prove to be a positive enhancement to the pharmacists role rather than the drudge that some pharmacists, (invariably the corner cutters), perceive them to be. |
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