An Approach for Safe Medication Assistance in Nursing Homes: A Workshop to Identify Problems of and Plan Measures for Care Workers.

We conducted a workshop that aimed to clarify problems with care workers supporting medication use in nursing homes, to propose measures for solving these problems, and to raise awareness of these problems among care workers. Eighteen care workers from different fee-based elderly nursing homes were enrolled in the workshop, and divided into four groups. The participants in these groups identified the issues based on their experiences regarding medication-related incidents, and discussed related problems and viable measures using the KJ method. The issues identified by each group were "dropping a medication", "wrong resident", "refusal to take medication", and "confusion". To resolve these problems, the participants recommended: "conducting study sessions or testing of manuals and medication knowledge", "strengthening monitoring systems", "enhancing information sharing", etc. The involvement of pharmacists was hardly mentioned, despite the workshop being designed for "medication assistance". A post-workshop questionnaire revealed that 88.9% of the participants acknowledged an increased awareness of safe assistance in the use of medication. A follow-up questionnaire, distributed approximately seven months after the workshop, revealed that 82.4% of participants applied the experience and knowledge they learned at the workshop to their work. The workshop seemed to raise awareness and lead to preventive measures for safe medication assistance. Communication between care workers and other health care professionals, such as pharmacists, is important to designing and implementing safe medical care in nursing homes.