Medication Management – Concept And Importance In Home Health Care Services
The modern day researches in the area of medicines have given rise to many such medicines which help in increasing the life spans of the people. This makes life happier with health. The modern medicines help in early diagnosis of the disease and thus people get the aid in a timely manner.
As the medicines are increasing day by day, people have to keep track of time schedule of the dosages and intakes of the same. Thus the concept of Medical Management has emerged.
What is Medical Management?
Medication management is a very recent concept. This is the medical care provided by pharmacists who aim at optimizing the drug therapy and improve therapeutic outcomes for patients. This concept was recently accepted by many pharmaceutical companies in the year 2004.
Whom does it apply to?
The medical management helps people to keep track of the dosages and amount of their medicines to be taken. Medicines are life savers but if the medicines are not taken as per medication policy and in the prescribed amount or at prescribed hours, medicines might harm your body adversely and make you more ill.
Such conditions generally arise with senior citizens, the people who are seriously ill and the people with disabilities. These people might find it difficult to keep a proper track of their medicinal dosages which in turn might affect their health and it might even prove fatal.
How does Medical Management work?
To keep a proper schedule of the medication going on, this helps in the form of caregivers. In the medical management, the patients, caregivers, and pharmacists work as a team and thus they solve the problem of medication.
The pharmacists and doctors prepare a fact sheet about the patient which is followed by the caregiver as a guide to manage the patient’s medication. This team is formed so that they can collectively handle all variations of simple level to complex level situations.
Benefits of Medical Management
This helps the patients in many ways as follows:
- For the people who face difficulty in remembering the dosage timings, the pharmacists may provide special pill boxes which will remind the patient or the caregiver about the timing of the medication.
- The pill boxes may range from low technological to high technological pill boxes. The simple pill box is a simple container with different slots for different days while the high technological pill boxes even have alarms and timers for reminding the schedule for intake of medicines.
- For the elderly patients or for the patients who are not able to read, the pharmacists may provide prescription labels in large font size.
- For the patients who have a problem with hearing, this team might help the patient by speaking in a loud tone so that the patient does not miss out on any important point. In such cases, the caregivers can also help the patients to hear on their behalf.
- There are many medicines and equipment like eye drops, ear drops, inhalers, injections which patients need to take for curing diseases. Some disabled patients might face difficulty in opening the bottles of medicine, taking injections, putting ear drops or eye drops, etc. The caregivers can help such patients with medicines and equipment.
Problem faced by patients
Many diseases demand multiple medicines to be taken. In such cases, this team helps the patients for their special needs.
Also, in such cases, this team should regularly keep tracking if the patients really need all the medicines prescribed, if one medicine interacts with other medicines he is taking, is the patient prescribed with the right dose etc. This helps the patient to keep up their health by reducing problems.
Medical management is a very important concept developed for the needy patients. Every person in his or her life has to face medical problems be it in young age or in old age. It is the society’s duty to take care of own fellow mates residing within our vicinity.