This is my daily list of things that I take, just my regular maintenance medications.
I always keep it with me in case something ever happens, that I need to go to the emergency room
and I can't speak for myself.
The doctors want to review the list with me. Everything is here,
up to date with the most recent doses. The list can change quite frequently.
When you get sick, you need more medications. When you're healthier, sometimes you come off medications.
So that's why it's very important for me to keep track.
Because not everything stays the same all the time.
I am very grateful for patients like Melissa who bring a history of their medications.
It helps us as clinicians to know exactly, you know, where to guide her therapy.
She's still the exceptional type of patient who keeps that list with her
to make sure that she knows what she's on and keeps us in check.
Here in the department of mental health and addictions, we have a quality committee that is looking at
how we do our medication reconciliation, and it has implemented various interventions
to improve the quality and the adherence to medication reconciliation. Many of our patients have
complex mental health needs as well as medical needs, and as such they are on
long lists of medications. And as a junior resident, I saw, you know, what could go
wrong is medications weren't reordered properly.
People are coming to the hospital for help
and we need to do our very best to provide them that help and that care.
On a unit like ours in a cardiovascular surgery unit, we're very interested in medications
that might affect the likelihood of a patient to have heart dysrhythmias after surgery.
Every patient that walks into the hospital benefits
from the health care team knowing exactly what they were taking at home so that we can
get them back onto their usual medications as they were taking them at home.
There isn't really any patient population that doesn't benefit from that.
We have a diverse population. But I think many patients have trouble keeping track
of their medication. They may have medication prescribed by a number of
different doctors. They take it at various times of the day.
Many of our patients are homeless, which makes it much harder to keep track of
information, so it's very important for us to get this right.
So I'm on quite a bit of medications. Maybe not being able to count it, but quite a bit for the day.
I think I have 11 in the morning and about six or seven at night.
I think the main objective is for me to get better and to get out here.
And so making sure that I'm on the right medication at the right time and the right amount
is important.
Their goal is for me to leave the hospital. And the goal is for me to leave too. More than them!