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Medication Support and Reconciliation.

One accurate list. Everyone working from it.
Including the people who need it most.

Medication reconciliation is the process of building one accurate list of everything a person is actually taking, from every source, and getting that list in front of the people who prescribe and dispense. Our nurses gather it, document where the sources disagree, and share the result with the GP and pharmacist with consent.

Most people on several medicines have a list somewhere. The trouble is that the list on the fridge, the list at the pharmacy, and the list in the GP’s file are often three different lists.

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Funding Support and reconciliation for your Medication.

Nursing supports may be funded through an NDIS plan, depending on how that plan is set up. Plan-managed, self-managed and agency-managed participants can all access our nurses, and we handle the service agreements and the reporting.

Providers can also engage us directly, which is common where support workers administer medicines and the organisation needs an accurate picture and staff who understand it.

This one is often easier to arrange than people expect, because it can be done by telehealth. Not sure if you are funded? Call 1800 678 647 and we will help you check.

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What the Nurse Does

The work is unglamorous and it is mostly about accuracy.

Builds One Accurate List

From every source: the medication chart, the dose administration aid or Webster pack, the pharmacy, the GP summary, and what is actually being taken at home. That last one is the source most often missing from everyone else’s list, and it is the one that describes reality.

Documents Where the Sources Disagree

Identifies where those lists do not match, and writes the differences down rather than quietly picking one. A discrepancy is information. It tells the prescriber and the pharmacist where to look, and it is the thing that most often goes unnoticed after a hospital stay or a change of provider.

Records Who Administers What

Which medicine, given by whom, how, when, and whether that arrangement is actually working. Where support workers administer medicines, this is where problems tend to surface: a dose given at a time that does not suit, or a routine that made sense on paper and does not survive a real morning.

Records Reported Side Effects

What the person, the family or the support team have noticed since a medicine started or changed. Written down and passed on. People frequently report something to a support worker and it never reaches the prescriber, because there is no route for it to travel.

Provides a Written Summary

A clear written summary to the participant, the GP and the pharmacist, with your consent. Then explains to the participant, family or support workers what each medicine is for and what to keep an eye on, in words that are actually usable by the person holding the blister pack.

Refers On Where a Review Is Warranted

Where the picture suggests a medicine needs looking at properly, the nurse refers to the GP, and to a pharmacist for a Home Medicines Review. Reconciliation gets the facts straight. Deciding what should change is a separate job done by different people.

INSIDE THE CLINIC

Who This Helps

Anyone taking several medicines, or living with chronic pain.

More medicines means more chances for something to be duplicated, missed, or no longer needed.

After a medication change or a hospital stay.

This is where lists most commonly stop matching. Something is started in hospital, something else is stopped, and the version at home was written before any of it happened.

Where support workers administer the medicines.

They need to know what each one is for and what to watch for. Handing someone a blister pack without that context is how reportable incidents start.

Where a participant is subject to a regulated restrictive practice.

An accurate and current medication picture supports the prescriber and the Behaviour Support Practitioner in reviewing what is in place.

What our nurse
do not do

Decisions about whether medicines are appropriate, whether they interact, and whether anything should change sit with the prescriber and the pharmacist. Those decisions sit there by design, because that is how medication safety works.

What our nurses do is make sure those people are working from accurate, complete information, and that everyone supporting the participant understands the plan.

Polypharmacy, and Why It Matters More Here

Polypharmacy is usually defined as taking five or more regular medicines, or two or more psychotropic medicines. That definition comes from the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission’s own Practice Alert on polypharmacy. It is common, and it is not automatically a problem. It does mean the medication picture is worth keeping accurate and worth having reviewed regularly.

The Commission notes that polypharmacy is significantly more common among people with disability, partly because people with disability are more likely to live with several health conditions at once.

Where a participant has a Behaviour Support Practitioner and medication is part of the picture, an accurate and current medication summary supports that work. Regulated restrictive practices, including chemical restraint, are authorised under state or territory requirements, sit within a behaviour support plan, and carry reduction and elimination as the goal. Our nurses do not authorise, prescribe or change any of it. The prescriber makes the decisions. What we contribute is an accurate record for them to decide from.

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Referrals.

If you are a Support Coordinator, LAC officer, Plan Manager or another health care professional and you would like to submit a referral for one of your participants, please select one of the below options.

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12 clinics across NSW & Tasmania

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hello@opt.net.au

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1800 678 647

Locations

In Clinic

Liverpool

Nowra

Telehealth

Available everywhere for everyone.

In Your Home

Illawarra

Horsely

Dapto

Wollongong

Shellharbour

Albion Park

Kiama

SOUTH COAST

Nowra

Shoalhaven

SOUTH WEST SYDNEY

Moorebank

Liverpool

Warwick Farm

Casula

Chipping Norton

Wattle Grove

COMMON QUESTIONS

Common Questions About Medication Reconciliation

What is medication reconciliation?

It is the process of building one accurate list of everything a person is actually taking, drawn from every source, and identifying where those sources disagree. It is the step that has to happen before anyone can judge whether the medicines are right, because you cannot review a list that is wrong.

What are the 5 steps of medication reconciliation?

The process is usually described in five steps: build a list of what the person is actually taking, build a list of what they are meant to be taking, compare the two, decide what changes, and tell everyone involved. Our nurses do the first, second, third and fifth. The fourth step, deciding what changes, is the review, and it belongs to the prescriber and the pharmacist.

When should I arrange one?

The two clearest triggers are a hospital stay and a medication change, because those are the points where the various lists stop matching. Beyond that, anyone on several regular medicines benefits from having the picture checked periodically, particularly where more than one prescriber is involved or where support workers administer the doses.

What is polypharmacy and why does it matter?

Polypharmacy is usually defined as taking five or more regular medicines, or two or more psychotropic medicines. It matters here because the more medicines involved, the more places a list can go wrong: a dose changed by one prescriber and never passed to another, something started in hospital and never stopped, a medicine nobody has looked at in two years. The polypharmacy section above has the detail.

Will the nurse talk to my GP?

Yes, with your consent. The written summary goes to you, your GP and your pharmacist. The whole point of the exercise is getting one accurate picture in front of the people who prescribe and dispense, so keeping it to ourselves would defeat it.

What happens if a chemical restraint is in place?

Chemical restraint is a regulated restrictive practice. It is authorised under your state or territory’s requirements, it sits within a behaviour support plan, and reducing and eliminating its use is the goal. Our nurses do not authorise it, prescribe it, or change it. What we do is make sure the prescriber and the Behaviour Support Practitioner are working from a complete and current medication picture when they review what is in place.

Can this be done remotely?

Yes, most of it. Building the list is largely a matter of gathering information from several sources and talking it through. That works well by telehealth, whether that is video or phone.

Do I get a written report?

Yes. A written summary goes to you, and with your consent to your GP and pharmacist. It sets out the reconciled list, where the sources disagreed, who administers what, and any side effects that have been reported.

CLINICALLY REVIEWED BY

Renata Bell

RN, BNSc, GradCertPH, Cert II Business

HEAD OF CLINICAL DEVELOPMENT (Nursing and compliance)
OPTIMUM HEALTH SOLUTIONS

Renata is a Registered Nurse with extensive experience across disability, aged care, emergency, urgent care, community, primary health care and clinical governance. Renata has worked in various clinical settings in Australia and the UK and has a passion for Chronic and Complex Healthcare. She reviews all Nursing content for clinical accuracy and compliance.