Pass Meds is the electronic workflow for documenting the administration of Routine and PRN orders. The page is organized into four different Med Pass Time Frames for ease of use and to efficiently identify if orders are overdue and which orders are scheduled for the future.
Enable Pass Meds
Pass Meds must be enabled by an ALIS team member. Most likely, you will coordinate an ALIS eMAR 'go-live' with your Onboarding manager to enable Pass Meds for a specific date and time. Your Onboarding manager will also work with you to configure your Medications Settings to meet your operational needs for Pass Meds. If you are self-onboarding or need further assistance with configuring your Medications settings, contact your Account Manager or our ALIS Customer Success Team.
Access Pass Meds
To document daily order administration, either click on the Pass Meds Dashboard icon, or use the Medications dropdown menu.
Dashboard Notification Badge and Banner
The number shown in the red notification badge on the Pass Meds icon represents the total number of unrecorded scheduled orders within the current time frame and previous two Med Pass time frames.
The purpose is to help you see the progress of the current med pass, and if there are any outstanding orders from previous shifts. This can serve as a useful tool for preventing holes on your resident MARs.
The breakdown of these totals displays in the orange notification banner at the top of the Pass Meds page as shown below:
Med Pass Time Frames
The Med Pass Time Frames are set in Medication Settings and represent ranges of time throughout each day. It is important to note that there must be four Med Pass time frames (Morning, Noon, Evening, and Hour of Sleep) set, and these may or may not perfectly align with your staff shift times. That is okay! Those that have access to Pass Meds will always have access to all scheduled orders within a 24 hour period. When in Pass Meds, the page defaults to display the current shift or whatever time it is right now, and med passers can click back to view previous med pass time frames. If you need assistance updating these time frames, please contact your Account Manager or our ALIS Customer Success Team.
The breakdown of the time frames displays below the orange notification banner, focused on the current time frame by default. Click the tabs to the left to see the details of the two previous time frames, and click the tabs to the right to see details of the next three future time frames.
Filters
In the blue section, use the filters to minimize the amount of orders shown on the page below. With these filters you can view a specific resident's orders, decrease the time frame to look at orders within a smaller window of time, and see which orders are still outstanding to be recorded. You can also pull up a specific med cart, and look at orders that are specifically for nurse administration only.
Once you have applied filters and you need to start passing meds for a resident, scroll down to find the residents in the list.
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You can reorder the list by clicking some of the column headers:
- Resident Name will sort by alphabetical order.
- Room will sort by room number.
- Outstanding Meds will sort by residents with the earliest outstanding med schedules.
Click the blue Pass Meds button to the right to start recording meds for a resident within the filtered list.
Pass Meds for a Resident
At the top of the Pass Meds page for a resident, you will see basic information about the resident including diagnoses, allergies, and diet. If the resident has a Pharmacy contact set on their profile, you can see those contact details by clicking on the View Pharmacy Contact button. For more information about resident contacts, read this Resident Contacts Reference Guide article.
The page defaults to the Routines tab, which displays a list of all Routine Medication and Treatment orders scheduled within the filters you selected on the previous page.
- Read the information and instructions for orders on the left, and notice the badges indicating OK, WAIT, and LATE. These are there to guide you on the appropriate administration time based on when the order was scheduled. These badges do not prevent you from recording administration. For more information, read this Why does a medication say "WAIT" or "LATE"? article.
- To the right of the order details, use the buttons to indicate if the order was Passed as directed, or if there was an exception. Read the next section for more information about exceptions.
- Depending on your Medications Settings and security role, you can also update the date, time, and dose fields. Add notes if needed.
- You can either record administration for orders one at a time or record all orders on the page at once. When you are ready to stamp the MAR, click the green Record Med Pass button at the top right of the page. This button will not be available until all required details have been filled in for any orders you have recorded.
- Additional fields may be required for specific orders such as injection locations, patch locations, vitals records, or pain level. If any of these apply, you will need to make the required entry before clicking Record Med Pass.
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Pain Level Example:
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Pain Level Example:
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- Once you record order administration for one resident, easily navigate to the next resident's Pass Meds page by using the resident dropdown menu at the top right of the page. The filters you selected on the previous page will hold, and therefore there is no need to click the back button each time.
- If your community uses Barcode Scanning for Pass Meds, be sure to review this How to Use Barcode Scanning in Pass Meds guide for specific details on using this feature.
Pass Meds Exceptions
When an order is not Passed as directed, there are three other options in Pass Meds that are considered "exceptions": Refused, Adverse Reaction, and Other.
When you select Other, default ALIS settings further prompt med passers to type a reason why the medication was not passed in a required Reason text field before recording the outcome.
There is also the option to enable a custom medication exception reasons to choose from that replaces the open text field. This list is behind an entitlement and requires an ALIS team member to enable it. For assistance, contact your Account Manager or our ALIS Customer Success Team.
Once enabled, there is a list of ALIS default options which can be customized further in Medications Settings. Your customized exception reasons menu will be sorted in alphabetical order in Pass Meds.
Record Vitals
Some orders may require vitals checks in order to be recorded. Additionally, some Treatment orders may be only there for the purpose of recording vitals at scheduled times.
When vitals checks are required for an order, you must enter and save a vitals record before the options to mark the order as Passed or an exception reason appear.
If vitals entered fall outside of a preset range, ALIS will notify you of this. Based on how the order was processed, there may be additional administration instructions on the left hand side indicating what to do in the event that saved vitals are outside of the range.
Record Pain Level
Similar to required vitals entry, some orders may require a Pain Level to be entered in order to be recorded. There are two options for recording the pain level in Pass Meds and when administering PRNS: Select Pain Level and Calculate with PAINAD. Depending on how the order was processed, both options or only the PAINAD scale option may be available when recording.
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Select Pain Level - This option shows a range of faces with corresponding pain levels 0-10. Simply click on the face for the pain level you wish to record.
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Calculate with PAINAD - Use this option to calculate pain level based on non-verbal expressions. Make a selection per lefthand line item. Once you have made a selection for each, the resulting pain level value and face will appear to preview before clicking Submit Result.
For either calculation option you choose, the pain level will populate an entry in the required Pain Level field. You can then click the outcome (Passed, Refused, Adverse Reaction, Other) and Record Med Pass.
PRNs and PRN Outcomes
From within the Pass Meds page, you are able to view a resident's list of PRNs and record administration. Click the PRNs tab to go to the resident's available PRNs to administer. Click the Administer PRN button for the order you wish to record.
If a resident has an exclamation symbol within a triangle next to their name on the main Pass Meds page and on their PRNs tab, this means there is an outstanding PRN outcome for the resident. These outcome requirements remain until the outcome is recorded. For more information, refer to this How to Record PRNs and PRN Outcomes guide.
Reporting
There are many impactful reports in your ALIS Medication Reports. The Pass Med Report is particularly useful for efficiently viewing administration records data for specific Med Pass time frames and date ranges. Use the variety of filters to drill down specific data, such as the Recorded Status multiselect dropdown. This allows you to filter your report to view orders Not Recorded, Recorded with Exception, and/or Recorded as Passed. Once you have updated the filters, you can also print or Export to Excel this report.
Related Articles:
- Video: Pass Meds and PRNs
- Why is this resident showing on Pass Meds?
- How to Record PRNs and PRN Outcomes
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