How do we support clients with intramuscular injections?
Following a recent Vancouver All-Staff Forum about Home is Best (HIB), we received a question about how we support community clients, including mental health clients, with intramuscular (IM) injections. When a client requires IM injections to maintain wellness out of hospital, what do our medication support services look like?
If you couldn’t join us for December’s Vancouver All-Staff Forum on homelessness, full coverage of the event can be read here and our latest client video — Home is Best: Annabel’s Story — is available for viewing here. (See links to more client videos below.)
If you have a question about Home is Best (or other work-related topics), we welcome your email at OneVancouver@vch.ca.
Today’s answered questions
Q. Are there medication support services for clients who require intramuscular injections? My concern is that there’s medication support in the community through outreach pharmacies; however, they only do oral medications. I know there are many clients who need an injection to maintain their wellness out of hospital. Some of these clients are mental health clients and most case managers do not do outreach to help out with this matter. Do you know of any programs offering ongoing outreach for intramuscular injection medication support?
A. Yes, absolutely. In fact, there should be no gap in service for clients who require intramuscular (IM) injections for medication.
Home Health nurses typically educate their clients and/or family members to administer IM injections. When that isn’t possible, Home Health will refer clients to an outreach pharmacy. When medication is required for a psychiatric condition, Home Health case managers refer their clients to the Mental Health (MH) team.
Together, the Mental Health (MH) physician and nurse case manager determine the best service. Typically, MH nurse case managers administer IM injections on an outreach basis, organizing for delivery of medication to the client’s home or bringing the medication with them on their visits. This way, the client can be assessed and observed for any reactions or side effects, and for treatment efficacy. When the client is more stable, IM injections can be provided by an outreach pharmacy partner.
To learn more about medication support services, you may be interested in our new Medication Support Program. As recently announced in VCH News (see “Daily home delivery of MHSU medication begins”), this program involves six partner pharmacies offering home visits to provide eligible mental health and substance use (MHSU) clients with their daily medicine and help with intake. At least one of these pharmacies offers IM injections.
Our clients’ stories
For more on how we’re supporting clients with a range of needs to live well in the community, view our series of “Home is Best” videos. Each video features a client and shares his or her unique and heartfelt story.