I. Introduction The purpose of a community pharmacy is to provide patients with a safe and trustworthy environment to pick up their monthly prescriptions. The typical process involves patients seeing their doctors, being diagnosed with a health condition, and being prescribed medications to treat these health conditions. Patients are then expected to bring their prescriptions to their pharmacy to get them filled and proceed to get the medications refilled on a monthly basis. The challenging aspect of this process is that most patients are not on just one medication to treat their conditions. Rather, most patients are usually taking multiple medications to treat their chronic health conditions.3 A typical community pharmacy is in charge of providing patients with their monthly medications, but there is so much more to what a community pharmacy does.
The pharmacy staff answers phone calls, contacts physicians for refill authorizations or prescription discrepancies, contacts insurances companies to resolve coverage issues, counsels patients on new or refilled prescriptions, among many other things. While this model has been around for many, many years, it is wildly inefficient.
Patients with multiple prescriptions call the pharmacy multiple times per month, which leads to repetitions of the process described above. This leads to a number of unknowns and the pharmacy staff is bombarded with multiple hurdles to overcome and most importantly, the workload is significantly
Goal three by the National Patient Safety Goal for 2014 is to use medicines safely. Many errors occur regularly with medications which is why communication is so important with the doctors, nurses and patients. One process that Joint Commission requires in accredited HCO’s is medication reconciliation “creating the most accurate list possible off all medications a patient is taking, including drug name, dosage, frequency, and route, and comparing that list against the physician’s admission, transfer, and/or discharge orders with the goal of providing correct medications to the patients at all transition points within the hospital (Finkelman & Kenner, 2012, p. 388)”. Ensuring medication reconciliation to the patient, health providers and any new consults that are
It’s not simply the particular giving of the medications that fare up all the time. It is checking the medical record with the hand written prescriptions, grouping the varied medications and also the instrumentation for giving them, and ensuring all the patients safety measure are covered.
When doctors prescribe medication for their patients, a local retail pharmacy is most likely to be utilized to fill the order. However, there is a growing population of older Americans that are no longer able to live independently and must reside in nursing homes or assisted living facilities. In order for this vulnerable population to receive their medications, a different kind of pharmacy is needed, these are known as LTC, long term care pharmacies. Within these specialized pharmacies there are highly trained employees called CPhTs, certified pharmacy technicians who are overseen by state licensed
The Web Portal could also be expanded to provide outside vendor services such as, Just in Time pharmaceutical replenishment and inventory updates. Just in Time pharmaceutical replenishment will allow the hospital to automatically replenish stock and optimize inventory. The hospital will have to grant access to its database to companies similar to Just in Time, but the rewards for the hospital will be phenomenal. The hospital can cross references the prescription company’s database to ensure that no other medication the patient is taking will have complications for the patients or adverse effects. The system could also recommend alternatives to the prescribe medications to even further
The contribution of pharmacists in a clinical setting and community pharmacy is significant that the workforce benefit from. When the workforce understands their medications and complies with the prescribed treatment plans the work center becomes healthy and the potential of increased productivity becomes a realistic and profitable proposition for the organization. When the workforce takes advantage of the healthcare services the pharmacists provide in a community and clinical pharmacies productivity and profit are at high potential reality.
Long-Term Care pharmacies which are Long-Term care serve residents an institution like nursing homes and assisted living facilities, as well as LTC patients in more residential environments. A long-term care pharmacy is actually re-exploring the initial role of the general physician in terms of monitoring patient conditions and regulating drug protocols. They provide pharmacy, infusion, education, consulting, and population. When students that are just finishing the
This is a journal study to investigate the perceptions and opinions of the professional community pharmacy staff about the causes of dispensing errors and strategies to prevent these errors. A survey was completed by pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in 49 community pharmacies and the response rate was 90.9% (Lopes, Joaquim, Matos & Pires, 2015). Handwritten prescriptions were the most single cause of medication errors 51.5% and drugs with similar packages 45.6% (Lopes et al., 2015). Checking prescriptions and confirmation of drugs through barcodes was 97% which were the most agreed prevention methods (Lopes et al., 2015). This article would not only be useful to pharmacy personnel but to other health practitioners or students performing research. In addition, a study similar to this could serve as an example (initiative) that may benefit management. Such initiative would be implemented to help improve medication
Encourage the use of computer-generated or electronic medication administration records. Plan for the implementation of computerized prescriber order entry systems. Consider the use of machine-readable code (i.e., bar coding) in the medication administration process. Use computerized drug profiling in the pharmacy. Be a demanding customer of pharmacy system software; encourage vendors to incorporate and assist in implementing an adequate standardized set of checks into computerized hospital pharmacy systems (e.g., screening for duplicate drug therapies, patient allergies, potential drug interactions, drug/lab interactions, dose ranges, etc.)”. (Association,
Pharmacists have many different responsibilities to their patients, these include promoting patient’s safety through checking the patient’s medication and keeping good records every time a patient fills a new prescription or refills prescription filled (Leagle, 1994). Pharmacists should also improve
Even so, physicians at Community Hospital may not yet be able to send a medication order to the pharmacy from their recommending device, because it has been recommended that their facility does not have the type of pharmacy information system that can support a CPOE. At the same time, this may cause a small issue, providers have taken it upon
The word ambulatory can make one think of a hospital environment. Ambulatory Care Pharmacy began in June of 2007 by the Board of Pharmacy Specialties (Ambulatory Care Pharmacy, 2013). The job of an Ambulatory Care Pharmacist is not limited to, but can be done in the hospital and community-based settings. Ambulatory Care Pharmacists can provide guidance with medication needs while developing a healthy, interpersonal relationship with their patients (Ambulatory Care Pharmacy, 2013). As a
As well as using multiple physicians, elderly clients may use more than one pharmacy. Each pharmacy attempting oversight of the client’s medication use may not be aware of all the medications prescribed.
Set-up and workflow of my pharmacy is pretty good for patient centered care. Patient does not have to wait too long for their prescriptions to be filled. Patients can call for their refills via telephone or online, which makes their life easy as they don’t have bother coming in-person for refills. Patient profile shows all medication history as well as number of refills remaining. This makes it easy for pharmacist to know whether to refill a prescription or call doctor for refill request. After confirming to fill a prescription pharmacist runs claim through insurance and print label after claim is successful. All medication is arranged alphabetically on shelves, thus it is easy and quick to retrieve. Then after technician fills medication and then pharmacist checks it. This workflow is quite smooth and quick to process. Final check is done by pharmacist, who confirms right medication for right patient as well as the NDC dispensed, amount dispensed, direction for use, and day supply. All these steps of process take place on working table in sequential order, which helps to reduce errors in filling and have effective prescription filling. Once the prescription is filled pharmacist do all paper
The data entry stage has two major problems. The first problem is drug utilization review (DUR). As showed by PSI team for the pharmacy fulfillment process, DURs arise frequently and pharmacists must waste time to intervene. CVS’s central database of customer fails to update and understand customers’ newest condition, so that the issue of DUR triggers customer’s dissatisfaction and wastes a lot of time for pharmacists. The second problem in the data entry stage is no refill allowance. Many customers may lose track of how many refills that were allowed and drop off an ineligible script
Prescription after prescription is brought through the door, most carried by customers eager to have their medication filled. One responsibility of a pharmacy technician is to make sure that a date of birth, address, and doctor’s signature is on each prescription. It is also very important to check for a change in insurance, and whether or not the customer has any allergies. Some medications, such as controlled substances and narcotics, also require a driver’s license or government issued ID to be presented when dropping off and picking up the prescription. The pharmacist can then be given the prescription after making sure that all of the required information is accounted for.