At the Salvation Army Alcohol and Other Drugs Services Tasmania, we identified a need for residential services to manage medication differently. This was due to the staffing profile of the services and the challenges associated with non-clinical staff managing medications without the necessary training and support. This led to an increase in medication errors, lack of medication self-efficacy in our participants in residential programs and a significant burden on staff managing medications. To address this, as part of my role as the National Clinical Nurse Coordinator, I developed a pilot program whereby clients self-managed their own medication whilst in residential treatment. This was initially trialled at the two inpatient residential rehabilitation services in Tasmania.
We took into consideration the risks and benefits of participants managing their own medication including participants, staff and organization.
Self-management of medication (SMM) is a philosophy of care that supports clients to:
• be as independent as possible while in AOD treatment.
• participate in their own care.
• make decisions about their treatment in partnership with healthcare professionals.
It is a well-established practice in disability and aged care to promote autonomy and resilience but in AOD residential services, non-clinical staff often manage medication due to the perceived risk of clients having access to medication and the perceived risk it may pose to an individual or the service.
The pilot has been overwhelming successful with very few safety events (all which were minor in nature) noted which assisted us to further refine our processes.