How can I work with Medical Credentialing

Managing Medication Administration Credentials

Conceptual Approach

A person that can give medications must have:

1. A credential type that authorizes them to administer medications
2. When a person has that credential type, it must be ‘certified’ as of a specific date

When a person giving medications makes a mistake, they are assigned “points”, Points maybe due to:

1. A process issue (Process points)
2. A patient rights issue (Rights points)

Only a person with the privilege to perform Medication Scoring can assign points.

When the number of points assigned to a person exceeds a threshold, or at the discretion of the Nurse manager, the person’s certification can be withdrawn, and they no longer can administer medications until their certification is restored.

Restoration of certification is at the discretion of the Nurse manager and is usually based on reviews and retraining.

Setting the credential type

imPowr allows users to define any desired credentials. One or more of those can be tagged as allowing Medication Administration. For example, a MD Degree, a RN degree, an agency specific “Med Admin” credential, etc.

To create or update a credential to be consider Med Administration, go to the Configuration section, and add or update a credential accordingly.

Assigning a credential to a person

In the staff credentials section, a person can be assigned one or more of the ‘Med Administration’ authorized’ credentials. The date the credential is issued is NOT the same as the certification date.

The issue date never changes (e.g., a RN degree or MD degree is issued on certain date and that does not change).

However, the certification date will change over time as a person is certified, decertified, recertified, etc. by the agency. The changes to dates are captured in the audit trail so even though we only show the most recent certification date on the screen, the full history will always be available.

To assign the credential and set the date, go to the menu item for Staff Credentials.

Assigning points for a Medication Error

When a medication incident occurs, an incident record is created and a person responsible is identified. When viewing the Medication Error Scoring page for that incident, the screen now shows the last certification date, the cumulative points (since certification or past 90 days) and provides a link for the Nurse Manager to update the person’s certification date.

Clicking that link provides a quick shortcut for setting or clearing the certification date. When the certification date is clear, the person is considered “not certified”. The certification can also be changed by editing the account credentials on the account credential screen.

Indication on the Medication Error Log

The Medication Error log screen now shows the most recent certification date (or blank for none) and the cumulative points since that date or 90 days.

Indication on the Staff Readiness List

A new Staff Readiness list is provided where you can search for a particular credential and see who has it and who is active (not decertified). If you create an agency certification called “Medication Authorized” (or something similar) you can see everyone on one list. Otherwise, you would need to look at MDs, RNs, and other credentials separately.

Right now, we show the date only and don’t make a big deal of it. If you want it highlighted in RED when missing and GREEN when available we can do that, or we can even say “Available” or “Not Available”.

Indication on the Staff Credentials list

The current Staff Credential list has also been updated to show medication related points for those medication credentials.