Medication Adherence Essay

The intended use of medications is meant to improve a person’ health, it is very important the individual administering medication or self-medicating use the drugs correctly, by following the doctors’ instruction for the medication prescribed. Medication is given to diagnose, treat, and prevent illness. Medication can be very dangerous, which can potentially cause harm or even deaf if it’s not used properly.

Medication errors are the leading cause of morbidity and preventable death in hospitals (Adams). In fact, approximately 1.5 million Americans are injured each year as a result of medication errors in hospitals (Foote). Not only are medication errors harmful to patients but medication errors are very expensive for hospitals. Medication errors cost America’s health care system 3.5 billion dollars per year (Foote).Errors in medication administration occurs when one of the five rights of medication administration is omitted. The five rights are: a) the right dose, b) the right medication, c) the right patient, d) the right route of administration, and e) the right time of delivery (Adams). Medication administration is an essential part of

As the medical field is growing at a very fast pace, one must always remember that the patient always comes first. After all isn’t helping individuals get healthier in their time of sickness the sole purpose of becoming apart of the medical profession? As a practicing pharmacist, my sole purpose will be to aide all my patient’s needs in whatever way that they need to be assisted in.

Pharmacists have many different responsibilities to their patients, these include promoting patient’s safety through checking the patient’s medication and keeping good records every time a patient fills a new prescription or refills prescription filled (Leagle, 1994). Pharmacists should also improve

Many patients are finding it more difficult to afford their prescription medications. Comparing health care expenditures in the United States, prescription drug costs rank third compared to hospital expenses and physician services (Omojasola, Hernandez, Sansgiry, & Jones, 2012, p. 479). The rising cost of prescription drugs is concerning to many patients. “The high out-of-pocket prescription drug cost is associated with medication non-adherence and adverse health outcomes” Omojasola, et al., 2012, p. 480).

An 80 year old female patient with admitting diagnosis of Congestive Heart Failure was refusing care. She presented with unremarkable vital signs, shortness of breath on exertion, decreased air entry right lower field, heart sound 1 muffled, heart sound 2 regular. She had oedematous legs bilaterally. Due to excessive oedema, she had ecchymosis to dorsal left foot, her dorsalis pedis were not palpable and experienced foot pain exacerbated with passive range of motion. She also had a small open coccyx wound. Again, patient was non-compliant with care, refused to be repositioned and refused administration of all medication.

In the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report in 2006, Preventing Medication Error, more than 1/3 of the 1.5 million adverse drug events that were recorded in the United States each year occurred in an outpatient setting. Likewise, in 2008 IOM released a report that laid emphases on the need for setting universal standards within prescribing and dispensing practices. Multiple studies reported that an increased prevalence of patient adherence to taking prescribed medications can be compromised by their inability to comprehend or understand the directions for taking the medication (Wolf et al., 2016). The inability to understand and interpret prescription drug labels were recognized as the leading cause of a large proportion of outpatient medication error and adverse events, as patients may possibly accidentally misuse a prescribed

The Department of Health and Human Services launched Healthy People 2020 to promote quality of life and healthy development across all life ages (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011). As a healthcare professional working at retail sector, one of the pharmacist duties is to improve medication adherence that promote better quality of life for all groups. One of the biggest challenges for healthcare professional is improve medication adherence after the initial discharged of the patient to prevent hospital readmission. According to a study by the New England Healthcare Institute (NEHI), nearly one in five patients discharged from the hospital is readmitted within 30 days and resulted in an estimated total cost of readmissions

With the growing reliance on medication therapy as the primary intervention for most illnesses, patients receiving medication interventions are exposed to potential harm as well as benefits. Medicines have proven to be very beneficial for treating illness and preventing disease. This success has resulted in a dramatic increase in medication use in recent times. Unfortunately, this increase in use and expansion of the pharmaceutical industry has also brought with it an increase in hazards, error and adverse events associated with medication use.

Prescription medications are intended to help individuals not create new problems. When an individual is diagnosed with ADHD they often seek medical attention. Medication will often be prescribed to help this individual manage their ADHD symptoms. However, many of the medications used to treat ADHD are stimulants. These stimulants can have adverse effects on the human body. There are hidden dangers when using ADHD medications such as side effects, addiction, and classification.

Everyday there are children receiving some kind of prescribed drug for psychological problems such as ADHD,anxiety disorder,autism,and many other disorders.However, children that are given prescribed drugs are usually given to them for convenience rather than necessity.Providing a child prescribed drugs at such a young age can lead to problems with their health in the future as well as other harming side effects,also nutrition is often overlooked and drugs prescribed may be doing more harm than good.Further more, children that are diagnosed with a psychological disorder and receive public assistance are more likely to receive off label medication which can be more dangerous. Therefore, children are not capable of sustaining the effects of prescribed medication because some children may be overdiagnosed and drugged for “parent convenience” ,there are dangerous long term side effects to some of

People all over the world, continue to be tendered prescription medication, which in many cases further complicate health issues with its myriad of side effects. In fact, statistics have shown that approximately 100,000 people around the world die as a result of prescription drugs annually (Smith, 2012). On the contrary, according

In conclusion, addressing the problem of non-adherence would help alleviate the burden of added costs to healthcare. When patients take their medications as prescribed, they are considered to be adherent. Adherence has two components that are complementary to each other: persistence and implementation

The pharmacist’s role is vital in Sue’s care and she has established that they help her manage her condition (Shawn McFarland et al., 2014). For instance she picks up her prescription from the pharmacy, and discovered that she had a new medication that the doctor prescribed. She asked the pharmacist if he could explain the medication to her. He gave her an easy to read pamphlet of her medication.

The provision of written medication information given to the patient helps significantly in cases of medication non compliance (McGraw & Drennan 2004). This is because it aids in memory retention and presents patients with access to a reliable source of concise medication information, particularly if the patient needs to be reminded of certain aspects (Gorgos 2006). These written medication information sheets need to be provided in the patients primary, dominant language because it reduces the difficulty and limits barriers to patient understanding (Gorgos 2006).This is important because this intervention aims to increase a patient’s understanding of their medications, and when a patient feels more competent with the use of their medications, reduced