Community-Based Care

• The patient should be given a written list of all the medications that have been tried, the current medications, the dosages, and the clinical responses. Make sure that the patient or family can verbalize the names of the medications, the dosages, and the schedule for administration. If they cannot, instruct them to carry a card with all the information on it.
• With the number of new drugs and with many look alike/sound alike medications, precautions must be taken to ensure that the correct medications are provided. See Box 21-11 Sound/Look Alike Medications for a list of common sound/look alike psychotropic medications. Clinical programs need to have mechanisms in place to prevent drug errors.
• The clinicians of all disciplines who are seeing new patients need to assess the psychiatric medication they are currently taking to avoid its interruption.
• When a patient on psychiatric medication is admitted to an acute hospital, assessment of psychiatric medication must be included in the overall nursing assessment. Then if a patient is unable to take them for some reason while in the hospital (NPO, contraindications), appropriate alternatives can be prescribed.