31.3 Medicating Students
Administering both Prescription Medications (PMO) and Over the Counter (OTC) medications to students is done on the Daily Medications Board. This is a dashboard that is designed to display your list of "scheduled medications" each day and a place where all medications that have been administered can be recorded, displayed and reported.
Scheduled medications table
Scheduled Medications are the prescription medications that are required by students for the day. This schedule is automatically populated by Reach based on the frequency and dosage of any PMO medications that have been set in your student profiles.
Only scheduled prescription (PMO) medications will appear in the Scheduled medications table.
Administered medications table
Medications that have been administered to students will appear in the Dispensed medication table. This table will include both PMO and OTC medications that have been admininstered.
Permission to administer medications
Only staff with the [med_administer] permission setting will be permitted to administer medications based on the approved Medication categories in their personal profile.
See section 31.4 for details of how to set permissions for medicating students.
31.3.1.1 How to administer prescription (PMO) medications
Clicking on any of the students in the list of Scheduled Medications table will open the PMO Administering dialogue. Only staff with the [med_administer] setting set to [Yes] will be permitted to administer medications based on the approved medication categories in their personal profile.
When administering scheduled medications staff will be required to complete details on the form to record time, dosage and any notes relating to the activity.
When a PMO medication is administered it will move from the Scheduled table to the Dispensed table on the Daily Dispensary Board.
Administering As Required dosages for PMO medications
Where a prescription (PMO) medication is allocated to a student with a frequency of As Required then administering the medicine is done by clicking the As Required button in the Daily Medications Dashboard.
PMO medications with an As Required frequency will not appear on the Daily Medications Dashboard.
Capturing Dispensing Staff Identity
Medications dispensing is a critically important procedure that requires accurate identification of dispensing staff. Using generic staff login profiles (eg: Supervisor on Duty) is not adequate record keeping and will expose your school to the risk of not maintaining adequate records. It is vital that staff dispensing medications are logged into REACH with their own profile.
31.3.2.1 How to administer OTC medications
OTC medications are, in most cases, administered in an ad-hoc manner as required to students.
In some instances OTC medications may be prescribed for a student by a doctor or nurse when treating illness or injury. In these instances the OTC medication needs to be set as a prescribed medication for the student in the student's Medication Profile. Here the details of the medicine, dosage and required time of medicating can be set for the student and the OTC will become a scheduled item in the Daily Medications Board.
You can only dispense OTC medications to a student that is permitted to take that specific medication or medication category (eg: Paracaetamol). OTC permits are created for the student in the student profile by parents in the Parent Permits section of the parent's account. Approved staff can also set student permits for OTC medications.
Click on the As Required button in the Daily Dispensary Dashboard to bring up the medication administering dialogue for OTC medications. Here you will be asked to identify the student, the medication, the dosage and reason for medicating.
When you select a student's name for OTC medicating, REACH will display the most recent medications that the student has taken. Here you can identify if a medication you are about to administer to a student has recently been administered. Medications that have been taken by the student in the last 6 hours are highlighted for quick reference.
Administering OTC medications set to schedule
To schedule OTC medications for a student they should be set as prescribed medications for the student in their Personal Medications Profile. When set as a prescribed medication the OTC will then appear as a scheduled medication in the Daily Medications Board for the student for the days and times of the prescription.