Overview

Private Duty Nursing Home Care is skilled care provided one-on-one by a Private Duty Nurse (RN or LPN) to medically fragile adults and pediatric patients in the comfort of their homes. A patient's unique and complex health challenges require personalizing care, tailoring it to the physician-ordered Plan of Care. Private Duty Nursing home care is different from traditional home health as the service is typically provided in longer shifts, anywhere from 8 to 24 hours over a long period.

Patients receiving Private Duty Nursing care may have many medications, with one or more controlled substances (Narcotics), to be administered during the shift. Medication management is one of a Private Duty Nurse's most essential responsibilities while working with patients with chronic complex medical conditions. Private Duty Home Care agencies should have a corporate policy to monitor narcotic counts and the safe handling of narcotics. Effective Narcotics Monitoring Program will maintain compliance with regulations, prevent the diversion of drugs, prevent medication errors, and maintain accountability.

Private Duty Nursing Agencies may use paper-based forms or some tools outside their Home Care EMR software to track narcotic counts for the patients at home. Using paper-based forms to track narcotics may pose many challenges in effectively monitoring the administration and counts. Private Duty Nursing Agencies should leverage technology and use the right tools integrated with the Home Care EMR Software to track and monitor narcotics count.

This blog will discuss some essential features a Home Care Software should have to effectively track and monitor narcotics count for Private Duty Nursing Home Care agencies.

Challenges of Paper-based Narcotics Counts Tracking

Private Duty Nursing Agencies with paper-based narcotics counting tracking will encounter many challenges and inefficiencies. The following are some of the challenges agencies will face.

Manual Effort

Preparing Narcotics Drugs Administration and tracking forms will take much manual time and effort. Depending on the process, agencies may have to prepare forms for each patient and the drug to document and track the count. These forms must be manually updated whenever there are changes in a patient's medications. It is a time-consuming process, and the time spent will grow with the number of patients.

Potential Errors

Manually preparing the forms and tracking the count for narcotics will lead to possible errors. With all the demanding caregiving activities during the shift, the clinician may make mistakes in recording the count. Timeliness will also become an issue with the manual tracking process.

Compliance Issues

Collecting, reviewing, and auditing narcotics counts using paper forms will take time and effort. Nurses or supervisors may not detect discrepancies in counts promptly to initiate corrective actions leading to compliance issues.

An integrated Home Care Software with tools to count narcotic drugs count will help Private Duty Nursing Agencies to mitigate these challenges.

Essential Software Features to Track Narcotics Counts

The primary purpose of implementing the Narcotics Monitoring Program is to prevent the diversion of narcotic drugs, Medication Errors and improve compliance, accountability, and patient safety. Easy-to-use tools integrated with the Home Care Software will significantly enhance the effectiveness of narcotics for agencies. The following are some of the critical features of Private Duty Home Care Software.

Integrated

Private Duty Nursing Home Care Agencies' home care software platform should have built-in tools to enter and monitor narcotics drug counts for each shift. Using a standalone tool (Paper-based or Electronic) will require the nurses to work in two different systems leading to additional work and potential errors. An integrated tool that makes narcotics count and tracking as part of the continuous care documentation will significantly improve the quality of care, compliance, and patient safety.

Ease of Use

Nurses providing Private Duty Nursing Care are juggling multiple critical tasks giving patients care during their shifts. An integrated option to enter and track the narcotic drugs count during continuous care documentation will help nurses keep track of narcotics count as part of their workflow during the shift. Home Care Software should have the option to enter the count at the beginning and end of the shift or any number of times during the shift.

Patient Safety

An integrated narcotics count tool will be able to display narcotics drugs from the patient medication list for the nurses to enter and track the count. New or changed prescriptions will automatically be available at the point of care without manual intervention. Availability of narcotics at the point of care will eliminate medication errors and improve patient safety. Keeping track of narcotics counts will enable nurses to quickly detect overuse or underuse, improving patient safety.

Compliance

Home Care Software with an integrated narcotics count tool will allow Private Duty Nursing Home Care agencies to improve compliance with controlled substances regulations. The ability to count narcotics at the beginning and end of the shift and access to previous counts will help nurses detect any discrepancies and report them immediately. The software should be able to collect a signature from a witness validating the count. Narcotics counts log and access to historical count will help supervisors review narcotics count over a period of time and identify potential diversion or overuse.

Conclusion

Private Duty Nursing Home Care Agencies administering narcotics drugs to patients at their homes should implement the right home care software platform with the tools effectively to track narcotics count. CareVoyant understands the demanding needs to manage Private Duty Home Care Agencies providing skilled care for medically fragile patients while supporting other services like Non-Medical Personal Care, HCBS, and Home Health. CareVoyant Home Care software platform offers the right technology and tools to help a Private Duty Home Care Agency effectively manage the agency and improve operational efficiency and the agency's bottom line.

About CareVoyant

CareVoyant is a leading provider of cloud-based integrated enterprise-scale home health care software that can support all home-based services under ONE Software, ONE Patient, and ONE Employee, making it a Single System of Record. We support all home based services, including Home Care, Private Duty Nursing, Private Duty Non-Medical, Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), Home Health, Pediatric Home Care, and Outpatient Therapy at Home.

CareVoyant functions – Intake, Authorization Management, Scheduling, Clinical with Mobile options, eMAR/eTAR, Electronic Visit Verification (EVV), Billing/AR, Secure Messaging, Notification, Reporting, and Dashboards – streamline workflow, meet regulatory requirements, improve quality of care, optimize reimbursement, improve operational efficiency and agency bottom line.

For more information, please visit CareVoyant.com or call us at 1-888-463-6797.