Bear Cottage Admissions - Prescribing Future Orders
To help with consistency in prescribing future orders, there are a few key steps to follow to make prescribing and activating future medication orders easier.
Enter a dosing weight
All patients should have a dosing weight entered (even if there is not an accurate weight available).
This reduces alerts when prescribing medications, and when activating medications.
To enter a prescribing weight:
- Click into Ad Hoc forms
- Select the form 'Height/Weight/Allergies (Prescribing)
- Enter the most recent available weight into 'Dosing Weight'
- Select 'Other' as Type of weight
- Provide an appropriate comment in the comment box
Selecting medication frequency
When selecting the frequency of a medication, select the abbreviation term for frequency, as opposed to the 'hourly' option
(i.e. TDS not 8 hourly)
This makes rescheduling administration times easier for the nurses
Ordering split dose medications
When ordering split dose medications, order all doses of the same medication prior to signing. This gives the opportunity to review all doses and times prior to ordering.
- Order each dose as normal
- Enter the dose
- Choose the frequency as the time of day the medication is due to be given (e.g. 'night')
- BEFORE signing the medication:
- Add all other doses of the same medication
- Adjust the dose and frequency (i.e. time of day) as appropriate
- This provides the opportunity to review doses and times prior to signing the order
- Sign order as normal