Pharmacy
Pharmacy verifies every order and presciption you place. They often catch mistakes. Be nice to them when they call you!
INTRODUCTION
Our pharmacists are a great resource. Always feel free to ask the pharmacists questions. They are always willing to look up things.
We do have a limited formulary and all formulary items are designated with a green circle, a yellow triangle, or a red square in PowerChart/FirstNet. These symbols cannot be seen within the Dynamic Documentation workflows however, if medications are selected from PowerPlans or folders, they will be on formulary. The pharmacists will call you if you order something not on the formulary. If you want to order a non-formulary item you can use a Non-Formulary Request form and the pharmacist will determine if the non-formulary item is allowed.
Pharmacy also manages Coumadin patients and does their INRs in the pharmacy. They will give out INR meters to patients, but you need to fill out a pharmacy referral for this to happen. Ask the outpatient pharmacists about it if you have an anticoagulated patient and they can help you set it up.
Outpatient pharmacists are also available for comprehensive medication review, dosing consultations, pain management, poly-pharmacy review for elders, and prior authorizations.
Pharmacy Hours
- Available: Mon – Fri
- 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
- Phone #: 6377 or 6196
Outpatient Services are staffed from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and patients are seen from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday, except holidays.
Inpatient Services are staffed from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. 7 days a week, with a Pharmacist on-call 24 hours a day.
Services on call for:
- medications only stocked in pharmacy (e.g. hypertonic 3% saline, altaplase)
- certain level of trauma
- mass casualties
- (Pharmacy no longer responds for Code Blues, intubations, C-sections, or other critical patients.)
Scope of Services
Pharmacy services are patient-centered and are directed toward optimal patient care outcomes, health promotion, and disease prevention. Pharmacy services purpose is to assure efficacious, safe, and cost- effective drug therapy and appropriate outcomes in the use of drugs and medicines in the communities served.
Outpatient Services: Medical history review, interviewing patients for medication history, filling of prescriptions, patient counseling/education including food/nutrient interactions, cytotoxic IV preparation, distribution of medications to village and subregional clinics, drug information.
Inpatient Services: Preparation of sterile products (IV admixtures, piggybacks, syringes), medication histories, monitoring of drug therapy, drug information, discharge counseling/education on medications including food/nutrient interactions.
Drug Information/Education: Provided by a licensed pharmacist for patients and health care providers.
Personnel/Administration & Management: Recruitment and retention, staff development, development of department budget, maintains appropriate records for controlled substances, personnel management, scheduling, planning.
Supply and Distribution: Procurement of needed supplies from various vendors; distribution of medications to nursing units and clinics, vaccines to villages and clinics, prepackaging of medications and monitoring drug recalls, inventory management, cost accounting.
QC/QA/QI: Maintain Drug Utilization Reviews, Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, Drug Utilization Evaluations, Quality Controls, Adverse Drug Reactions, Non-Formulary requests, Clinical Guidelines, Staff Competencies/Training, and other Quality Improvement activities.
Mechanism Used to Meet Patient Care Needs
The Pharmacy maintains a QC/QA/QI plan which includes drug utilization review, drug utilization evaluations, adverse drug reaction monitoring, non-formulary request monitoring, clinical guideline monitoring/development, competency evaluations, pharmacist/DEA/FDA license monitoring, pharmacists dispensing review, chemotherapy dispensing review, Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committee activities, and various other quality control (patient waiting times, assessment of patient understanding of counseling, etc.) and quality improvement activities as determined. The Pharmacy also maintains workload indicators that are used to determine the application of existing resources and for strategic planning.
How the Unit is Staffed to Meet Patient Care Needs
The Pharmacy is staffed with 28 FTE's. Pharmacists account for 13 FTE's and Technicians account for 15 FTE's. Competency of staff is determined as new staff goes through orientation and the initial 3- month probationary period, in addition, each employee has an annual competency evaluation in conjunction with their performance appraisal. Workload indicators are continually monitored for adjustments in staffing (location, hours, FTE's, etc.).
Process Used for Acting on Both Positive and Negative Variances
The Pharmacy Department monitors workload activities and builds staffing schedules to accommodate the provision of care. Training and leave requirements are adjusted in order to assure the proper provision of care. Recruiting activities are on going and pharmacy intern(s) and TDY(s) fill any gaps in staffing.
