Improving Patient Medication Teaching With a “Meds-to-Beds” Program

Medication education is a vital part of a healthcare provider’s job. Nurses specifically often must take on the main role in medication education in collaboration with physicians and pharmacists. The current medication education at a certain hospital involves discharging patients with a list of medications, dosages, and instructions. The policy also includes the use of layman terms in discussion and handing the patient a sheet with the date/time of last administration by the nurse. Before discussing a change in policy, it is important to first clarify who must take on the responsibility of medication education . This is within the scope of practice of nurses, therefore nurses usually perform the role of medication teaching. Nurses must assess their beliefs and actions toward medication education in order to be successful educators and resources for patients. A program, “Meds-to-Beds” was presented upon and proposed to a group of nurses at a local hospital on a medical-surgical floor. “Meds-to-Beds” is a proposed improvement to the policy because the program has shown to improve patient adherence, decrease unplanned readmission rates, and eliminates the need for patients to go to a pharmacy on their way home after discharge