Please lower the standard for medication aide for small residential with 8 residents as long as they employ a full time license nurse that provide oversight on medication, provide training and  able to supervise their medication aide.

Small homes -  have FT Administrators, staffing are more consistent, less chaotic and medications are easy to manage due to small population.  As a Nurse with 10 years of experience passing meds in bigger AL, giving meds in smaller homes are much more safer and easier because I know their medications by heart and I have my eyes on my residents all the time. 

Being responsible to administer meds on 25 residents ( bigger building ) vs 8 residents  ( residential home ) are not the same. Small homes with licensed administrator and Full time Nurse have the capability to train their own Medication Aide and provide supervision for safety.

Some Families prefer small residential homes due to personalized care, home environment and lower cost.

Why do you mandate Medication Aides even when there are already RNs in a facility? If the facility have both RNs and Med aides, that’s fine. But if the facility has only RNs, they shouldn’t be mandated to have med aides if all shifts every day has an RN. Is an RN not sufficient enough? If the facility has only Med aide, yes the must have an RN. Not the other way around. That regulation is burdensome among several others