Posted by: Robert Markette
January 13, 2006

An issue that has come up repeatedly in the last few months is when does medication assistance become medication administration.  This question is important to home care providers, because administering medication is not something a personal care attendant or a home health aide should be doing.  Many a home care agency has strayed into home health, by having a nurse set up a medication planner for a patient.  The agency in this case assumes that filling the medication planner is just another form of assistance.

In fact, filling the medication planner, while not administering the medication in the sense of placing the pills in the patients mouth or injecting the patient with a syringe, often falls outside of the scope of medication assistance.  Most jurisdictions, especially those that offer a personal care agency or home care (non-skilled) agency license, define the term medication assistance. 

Each state provides a slightly different definition.  For example, in Utah, a CNA can actually check the dosage the patient is about to self-administer against the medication label.  In Indiana, home health aides and attendants are allowed to remind a patient that it is time to take their medications, open the preset medication container for the patient, and assisting the patient with handling or ingesting non-controlled substance medications.  The state of Washington allows attendants and aides to provide a level of assistance similar to that of Aides in Indiana.

They important thing to know is what your state defines as medication assistance.  Your aides should be made aware of the specific parameters of medication assistance.  Most home health agencies include this as part of their annual home health aide training.  For home care agencies, it is every bit as important that you attendants/companions/personal care aides are always aware that it is not appropriate to administer medication to a patient.  They might not see how placing the pills in the patients mouth is different from administering medication to their own children or even different from handing the pills to the patient, but it is and the consequences of administering medications can be rather severe for the caregiver and the agency.

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