Question

A fax was received in a private home where no fax was expected. The fax has come from a nearby long-term care facility, it is addressed to a provider, has personal information about a resident of the facility, and requests a medication change. What should the home owner do? What responsibility and action does the long-term care facility have?

Answer 1

Q.What should the home owner do?

  The home owner should not accept the request of medication change as it is a medication error .A medication error is defined as an error which is preventable that can lead to patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional.

The home owner has the right to register complaint against  the long term care facility regarding neglect in administering medication.

Q.Responsibility and action of the long-term care.

In a long term care setting,medication process consists of the following responsibilities:

• prescribing
• documenting
• dispensing
• administering
• monitoring

In the above case,no on-site health care professionals were available to observe residents condition.Disciplinary action should be taken against the professional who commited the error.