Workarounds in Documenting Drug Indication: Contributing Factors and Strategies

​On their transition to long-term or postacute care, residents or patients may lack documented indications for some or all of their medications, and staff may use workarounds to avoid verifying indications, according to a review article published July 20, 2015, in the Annals of Long-Term Care. If indication information is not available to staff, they may leave the field blank or guess the indication. One facility that had an electronic health record (EHR) system found that 24% of medication orders listed an inappropriate indication (e.g., "allergic rhinitis" for risperidone) and 9% had no indication documented.