Drug Card Template
Enhance your understanding and practice of drug administration, by creating your own Drug Card Template.
Fact Checked by Ericka Pingol.
What is a Drug Card Template?
Pharmacology is a dynamic field within the health sector that is essential for the treatment and prevention of symptoms, illnesses, and injuries. This relies on the knowledge of health professionals, such as nurses, to have a sound understanding of medications and their various uses.
It can be difficult to establish a sound foundation of drug categories, given the range and complexities surrounding medications. Additionally, nursing students that specialize in a particular area, may exclusively learn about drugs of their specialist interests (D’Angelo, 2022). This creates a challenge for the advanced practice registered nursing (APRN) faculty, to lift student nurses to the same level.
A Drug Card Template is a resource that may help the faculty, and training nurses quickly learn and access important information for safe and effective drug administration. The template compacts essential information regarding:
- The drug and provider name
- The drug class or action
- Dose and frequency
- Any special instructions
- Indications or reasons for drug use
- Contraindications or inappropriate uses
- Related side effects
- Nursing considerations
- Any important information for patients
Nursing faculties and various pharmaceutical centers may find this resource incredibly beneficial, as they save time and resources typically used in training student nurses. The template is also customizable for different pharmaceuticals, allowing students and experienced nurses to develop resources. Using this resource promotes safe and appropriate administration, ensuring safe and effective patient treatment.
Download our free Drug Card Template PDF
Effectively manage your drug information with our Drug Card Template
How does it work?
The Drug Card Template provides access to essential information about a specific drug. It breaks down information into different sections, giving both experienced and student nurses a quick reference when learning or in practice. This is a resource that can be used repeatedly, by customizing our template.
Here are the steps in developing your drug card template:
Step 1: Access the template
You can access our template here, or download a printable PDF version.
Step 2: Select the drug
Choose the drug you would like to learn more about or feel you need a reference for.
Step 3: Interpret the template
Look at the various information sections in our template, and make any adjustments or section additions that may help your learning. This may involve including a section about administration protocols for a specific drug.
Step 4: Access information
Begin accumulating information to fill out the sections in the template. This may involve revisiting your theory and training notes, consulting with peers or experienced nurses, or asking a faculty member to help you fill out the template.
Your sources must be credible and accurate, to ensure the precision of your information and subsequent practices.
Step 5: Complete the template
Fill in the template using the information you have gathered, taking care to avoid errors or misinformation.
Step 6: Consultancy
It may be beneficial to ask a peer or supervisor to check your template for accuracy.
Step 7: Ongoing Monitoring
As a nurse or health practitioner, it is essential to remain up to date with protocols and information to ensure safe and appropriate treatment. Therefore, it is highly recommended that individuals consistently revise or update any templates in response to any new findings or uses for pharmaceutical drugs.
Drug Card Example (sample)
Deepen your understanding of the drug template by accessing our drug card example. This document provides a practical demonstration of how the template may be completed for practical use.
It is highly recommended to use this as a reference material when devising your drug card. However, please consider that this example uses fictitious information, and should not supplement medical information or be used as a practical learning resource.
The example can be accessed here, or downloaded as a PDF using the following link:
Download our Drug Card Template Example PDF here
When would you use this template?
The Drug Card Template can be used in many circumstances but is primarily designed to be a resource for nurses, it can also be used by health professionals involved in pharmacology and pharmaceutical administration. Here are a few scenarios in which this template would be beneficial:
Educational resource
The template can be used again and again to develop drug cards for various pharmaceutical medications. As an educational resource, it can help training nurses to learn essential information regarding drug names, indications, and contraindications for administration.
Monitoring side effects
The template includes a section for side effects or adverse reactions related to the drug, which nurses can use to monitor patient health statuses. This is crucial for early detection and intervention of unexpected reactions, enhancing care practices.
Planning interventions
The indications and nursing consideration sections can help nurses plan patient interventions that consider any side effects or contraindications, ensuring safe administration for optimal patient health.
Patient education
Nurses may find these cards beneficial in patient consultations, as the resource consolidates all of the essential information required for patients to understand their medications. This is essential for patient awareness of side effects, and safe adherence to administration instructions.
Safe administration
The template provides an accurate visual resource that nurses can use to guide their administration and care procedures.
What do the results mean?
Results using our free Drug Card Template are multi-faceted and may differ amongst individuals depending on several factors. These may include the current understanding of medication, the individual’s specialization or background, and the way the resource is used. Here are some common results, and what they may hold for an individual:
- Effective interventions: Nurses may use information from the template, such as indications or class actions of the medication to use as a reference for devising effective treatment interventions.
- Enhanced therapeutic alliance: Nurses or health practitioners may use the drug card to explain the mechanisms and effects of the drug to their patients. This creates transparency in treatment and prevention, which may empower patients in managing their health, and enhance the therapeutic relationship.
- Enhanced understanding: Student nurses may use this as a learning resource, or as a reference when administering drugs that they have not had specialized experience with. This may reduce some of the resource and time constraints on experienced nurses or faculties trying to lift students to the same level.
- Patient empowerment: Nurses may give patients a copy of the drug card for their medication, which can enhance patient understanding of their treatments. This may empower patients to become more engaged in their health, by monitoring symptoms or changes in their health associated with the medication.
- Safe administration: The drug card emphasizes indications and contraindications for safe and appropriate medication administration. This ensures safe and effective patient care.
Why use Carepatron as your Drug Card app?
At Carepatron, our vision is to provide ongoing practical solutions to revolutionize modern health practices, allowing you to focus on providing optimal patient care. By using Carepatron’s Drug Card Template as your primary app and software, nurses and other health practitioners involved in pharmacology can enhance their knowledge and protocols surrounding safe administration.
As a Drug Card software, our technology allows health practitioners to customize the drug template to suit the protocols and information required for their practice. The template can be used again and again, to make educational resources for students and patients, as well as used in practice to check prescription and dispensing as another safety protocol. These can then be accessed through our Drug Card app for mobile access, or printed for a physical copy.
Our Drug Card app provides ongoing access to thousands of resources similar to this one. The app also integrates patient records and clinical documentation, allowing practitioners to compare information such as patient experiences with contraindications. This provides a seamless approach to health management that supports effective and safe patient treatment.
Furthermore, our patient portal allows patients to access information regarding drug dosage and frequency, which is essential for prescription adherence. Facilitating education opportunities may empower patients, and enhance therapeutic relationships.
References
D’Angelo, M., St Rose, T., Johnson, H., Owen, R., Radford, K., Taylor, L., Seibert, D. (2022). Using Drug Cards to Teach Generalized Pharmacology for APRNs, A Pilot. Nurse Educator 47(4), 94-95. https://journals.lww.com/nurseeducatoronline/citation/2022/07000/using_drug_cards_to_teach_generalized_pharmacology.28.aspx
Hanson, A., & Haddad, L. M. (2023). Nursing Rights of Medication Administration. StatPeals Publishing LLC. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK560654/#_ncbi_dlg_citbx_NBK560654
Medsafe (2019). Classification of codeine. Ministry of Health, New Zealand Government. https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/profs/class/Agendas/Agen63/MCC63_53a_Reclassificationofcodeine.pdf
NHS (n.d.). How and when to take codeine. NHS. https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/codeine/how-and-when-to-take-codeine/
SimpleNursing (n.d.). Perfect Drug Card & Med Admin NCLEX Review. SimpleNursing. https://simplenursing.com/drug-cards-nclex-review/#:~:text=Drug%20cards%20provide%20concise%20information,Promote%20safe%20medication%20administration.
Commonly asked questions
A drug card can be created by using our Drug Card Template to section out the essential information required for a solid understanding of a certain drug. The template can be used again and again to develop resources for different drugs.
Although these templates may be used for a variety of reasons, they are primarily designed to create drug cards to enhance understanding and safety around drug administration. Particular scenarios in which these are used include intervention planning or the monitoring of side effects by nurses.
The Drug Card Template is used to devise a drug card, that concisely presents essential information of a particular drug. They can be used in practice as a protocol to identify whether the drug is an appropriate intervention, or used to support education for patients or student nurses who are without specialized knowledge of that medication.
The template may be created by student nurses, experienced nurses, or faculty members per accurate and reliable information. Nurses in training may create an initial draft template, asking a supervisor to review the chart before it is finalized or used in practice.
