No Matter Where Your Loved One Lives You Must Stay On Top Of Their Care
When you have a loved on in senior living and their care is dependent on several providers in the facility you have to make sure that everyone is on the same page with the care plan. This sounds easy but it is not. The communication is not always what it should be. An example of this happened this weekend with my mom.
She had seen one of the the facility doctors about 3-4 weeks ago and she made some changes to her medication. My mom called me and said she realized she wasn't taking a specific medication. She noticed it was not there in her daily pills. She went to the nurses office and there was a new nurse there. Someone she had never had before as she was a temp filling in. Yes, temporary nurses fill in for staff at facilities you pay a lot of money for. They do not know the people they are caring for.
My mom asked the nurse about it and she said she did not see the medication on her list of meds. She told her it wasn't there. She said she would have to talk to the nurse tomorrow and see what the situation was. So my mom calls me about it and I decide I need to go over there myself and talk directly to the staff. So I walk into the nurses office and introduce myself. Ask her about the medication. She is there with another nurse I do not recognize either. The one who told me mom it was not there continued to tell me that. Said she didn't know what else to say but she would talk to someone tomorrow. The other nurse opens the computer and says "it is there". The medication is there and she gets it once a day in the morning. It had been 2 pills making up a dosage amount but had since been changed to 1 pill at a higher dosage.
So she was getting her medication but nobody told her about the change in the pills that had been made. One nurse filling in had no idea where to find the right information and another did. Kind of scary in my opinion. There should not be any confusion. So as always I sent an email to the executive director and nurse manager and explained what happened. I received a prompt reply from executive director telling me she would look into it. So far I have not heard anything back from the nurse manager. It has been a full day and evening.
Somethings to consider here. Make sure you follow-up with everyone at all times about medications and care. Be aware that people who do not know your loved one step in ALL the time as temp care due to constant shortages in quality caregivers all over the country is a concern. Lastly, communicate with everyone when you find something has occurred and follow-up on what they plan to do to make sure it does not happen again.