Many senior citizens have multiple health conditions that require taking different drugs daily. Unfortunately, pharmacists can give ineffective medications. In addition, a patient may confuse the types of medicine they are supposed to take and end up consuming the wrong medication or having an overdose. This is where medication management comes in.
If you’re working with senior residents, medication management can help them get their prescriptions and take the correct ones on time.
What is Medication Management?
Medication management is an outpatient treatment service that evaluates patients’ medications to ensure they are taken correctly. This involves evaluating the prescribed medicine and its side effects on a patient. This process helps guarantee finding the right medication for each individual patient.
Why Use Medication Management Strategies?
Failure to adhere to the proper medication can drastically affect patients’ health and cost of care. However, experts in medication management help improve patients’ safety and health quality.
Medication management includes the following:
- Administration of all necessary prescriptions
- Achieving patients’ health goals
- Reduced hospitalizations
- Reduced medical costs associated with the wrong prescriptions
Benefits of Medication Management for Seniors
Ensuring senior citizens get the right medication and regimen isn’t easy — sometimes, they may take medicines that have negative side effects on their already vulnerable health. That’s where Comprehensive Medication Management (CMM) comes in, as it can help manage the conditions of senior citizens struggling with medicinal side effects.
Some benefits of CMM are the following:
1. We assess the health benefits of medications
Some medications may only work for specific patients. As a result, CMM assesses a patient’s prescription to assess whether it has optimum benefits for an individual’s health.
2. Personalized medication therapy
CMM analyzes a patient’s health condition and reaction to treatment. If therapy doesn’t bring about the intended outcome, CMM facilitates the establishment of a regimen and a plan that works best.
3. Collaborative care
Collaborative care is an integrative healthcare model involving practitioners from multiple health fields to improve effectiveness of clinical outcomes. CMM involves collaborative care services among primary care providers, nurses, pharmacists, residents, and social workers. Collaborative care addresses issues that pharmacists may not be aware of in order to improve medication choices and services.
4. Regular patient engagement
CMM directly engages patients in their treatment. Patients are encouraged to actively participate in discussions involving their treatments to keep them informed and get their input on the type of medication they want.
5. Ongoing medication regimen review:
CMM is a comprehensive and ongoing process that ensures the regimen remains relevant and maximized when medications or prescriptions are changed.
6. Improved outcomes:
All the efforts involved in CMM, including collaborative care, continuous regimen review, and patient engagement focus on improving patients’ outcomes, bringing in practical elements to help improve the quality of care.
7. CMM reduces medication costs
When effectively implemented, CMM can reduce the cost of care for patients. It aims to ensure that patients receive medication that only positively impacts their health. Doing so can eliminate the expenses of other medicines that could have little to no benefit on a patient’s condition.
8. Increased quality of life
CMM can help improve patients’ contentment with the service provided, as well as improve their quality of life. It also allows care providers to feel an increased sense of pride in their work.
Why Choose Curana Health for Effective Medical Management?
To provide comprehensive and effective care, you must familiarize yourself with medication management.
At Curana Health, we actively partner with health professionals, communities, and health facilities to change and improve how they provide care services to senior residents. Our delivery model is senior-citizens-oriented. Seamless collaboration between providers, patients, and their families can ensure senior citizens’ access to quality healthcare.
We partner with senior living facilities to enhance value-based care. You don’t need restaffing or reorganization, as we integrate efficiently with your operations. We believe senior patients deserve a better environment to receive care.
In addition, our providers are local to the area they serve. Our services are physician-managed, and we run on-site services, such as urgent care, within planned communities.
Curana Health can help you implement and realize the benefits of CMM in your senior living facility. Contact us today for improved quality senior care.
Featured Image Credit: YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV/Shutterstock