Technology That Supports Medication Management in Aged Care

The demands and challenges on aged care providers are immense and there is an expectation for agile and efficient operating practices and a more personalised service with higher accountability and standards determined by an increased number of measured clinical outcomes.

Medication Management plays a crucial part and is pivotal in providing safe and quality care, meeting regulatory responsibilities and exceeding consumer expectations. Having a consistent and reliable administration process, seamless interaction between clinicians, prescribers and pharmacy and access to robust data is one of the foundations needed for best practice clinical and care governance.

The BESTMED ecosystem crosses the entire continuum of care, such as consumer medication therapy profiles and assessments, medications audits, charting and medication-related incidents. BESTMED gives aged care providers the ability to harness data and analytics with a real-time, multi-dimensional view of consumers. The automated reports have been designed to generate vital data on quality indicators, serious incident reporting, chemical restraint, polypharmacy and PRN use.

Medication Management system failures can have significant clinical consequences for aged care consumers, including but not limited to:

• Deterioration due to non-recognition of adverse and unwanted side effects
• Increased risk of falls
• Alterations to swallowing resulting in choking or aspiration
• Physical, systemic reactions to medications, for example, gastrointestinal upsets such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea
• Alterations in cognition such as increased confusion, depression and challenging behaviours
• Exacerbations of chronic disease
• Unexplained weight loss or weight gain of + or – 3Kg over a three (3) month period that can compromise immunity, skin integrity, and mobility
• Masking of emerging clinical symptoms and signs
• Decline in independence, for example, with activities of daily living
• The decline in sociality and increase in social isolation
• Falls resulting in transfer to an emergency department, hospitalisation, infection, skin breakdown, sepsis and death
• Medication metabolism may be disrupted as a result of polypharmacy. For example,  one medication may be affected by another medication

These critical consequences resulting from medication management system failures can lead to serious consumer harm and non-compliance. Implementing the BESTMED system will support you to mitigate the risk associated with substandard medication management and increase your operational efficiency enabling a more agile, transparent, consumer-driven environment.

BESTMED strengthens and underpins medication management and supports providers to achieve greater compliance and seamless stakeholder interactions.