The role of pharmacists has evolved from simply medication distribution to consultation services, recommendations on medications, follow-up reviews, and collaborating with other healthcare professionals. However, there has been discussion and studies done to understand what roles pharmacists should be held responsible for versus ones they should not be responsible for. These tasks have been evaluated based on how they improve the patient’s quality of life and the effectiveness of the healthcare system and health outcomes. In the study by Leape, the effectiveness of pharmacist participation on rounds in the ICU was evaluated. Pharmacists have been proven to decrease adverse drug effects (ADEs) and reduce costs when they participate on rounds …show more content…
They should not only educate patients about the medications they are taking and their current disease states, but they should also educate other healthcare professionals, specifically nurses and physician assistants. The interventions and services pharmacists provide have been shown to improve patient health, which can result in improved therapeutic safety and humanistic outcomes. A pharmacist is an expert about medications and disease states, so by sharing this information with other healthcare professionals it can create a more knowledgeable healthcare team that is better suited to serve patients. This can significantly decrease ADEs and other errors made by members of the healthcare team due to lack of specific drug …show more content…
In the POLYMED study, pharmacist participation in multiple at-home follow-ups appeared to have no effect on clinical outcomes or quality of life. Instead of doing home visits, pharmacists should complete follow ups only on new prescriptions for a short period of time depending on the nature of the drug. This follow-up intervention should be done in the pharmacy or over the phone, as home-visits were shown to be inefficient, costly, and time consuming. By following-up on new prescriptions, pharmacists are able to establish a connection and build rapport with their patients. Over the phone follow-ups with patients for new prescriptions are more effective and less time consuming than
... for every pharmacist. This ratio dictates that pharmacists can not oversee every aspect of technicians’ jobs. It is this singular fact that very few people realize. The pharmacy technician who receives no formal training is responsible for not just the delivery of a patient’s medication, but also for their bill, their confidential information, and their life. The question now is, how can an uneducated individual be given so much responsibility? Technicians are granted these responsibilities because a pharmacist can not do the job alone. Pharmacists strive to mold each new technician into an employee that will realize what technicians really do. Pharmacists and technicians provide patients with safe and accurate medication in a timely manner. This is not a task for pharmacists or technicians alone; it is task that requires both personnel in order to be accomplished.
Some method such as audits, chart reviews, computer monitoring, incident report, bar codes and direct patient observation can improve and decrease medication errors. Regular audits can help patient’s care and reeducate nurses in the work field to new practices. Also reporting of medication errors can help with data comparison and is a learning experience for everyone. Other avenues that has been implemented are computerized physician order entry systems or electronic prescribing (a process of electronic entry of a doctor’s instructions for the treatment of patients under his/her care which communicates these orders over a computer network to other staff or departments) responsible for fulfilling the order, and ward pharmacists can be more diligence on the prescription stage of the medication pathway. A random survey was done in hospital pharmacies on medication error documentation and actions taken against pharmacists involved. A total of 500 hospital were selected in the United States. Data collected on the number of medication error reported, what types of errors were documented and the hospital demographics. The response rate was a total of 28%. Practically, all of the hospitals had policies and procedures in place for reporting medication errors.
Currently, through observations and clinical experience on Med/Surg at Cary Medical Center, medication is administered by the nurse. Nurses are responsible and accountable for administrating medications to patients. Patient me...
This service is experienced, documented, evaluated and paid for as Pharmaceutical Care. Pharmaceutical Care consists of a philosophy of practice, patient care process as well as a patient management system. Pharmaceutical Care has common integrated vocabulary consistent with other patient care practices such as medicine, dentistry and nursing. Philosophy of pharmaceutical care consists of a description of the social need for the practice, a concise and clear statement of individual practitioner responsibilities to meet this social need, the expectation to be patient-centered and the requirement to function within the caring paradigm. This philosophy of practice is expected and practiced by all health care professionals. The patient care processes must be consistent with the patient care processes of all other health care providers. These processes include the assessment of the client’s pharmaceutical needs, a health care plan that is constructed to meet the specific needs of the client and a process in which evaluates the health care plan to gauge the efficacy of decisions made and actions taken. Pharmaceutical care management system includes all resources needed to manage the client’s needs, which include the space provided, such as a clinic or hospital, an appointment system for patients, appropriate and ethical documentation, reporting of patient care, evaluation of decisions made and actions taken and payment of service
Job Description: Pharmacists ensure that medications are used appropriately, and that they bring about the best results. Their responsibilities include professionally interpreting and reviewing the prescription orders written by doctors, dentists, and other authorized health care providers, and also for giving out the medications accurately to patients. The main goal of pharmaceutical care is to improve the quality of patients? lives by the use of medications that have been prescribed in order to accomplish specific results.
I pleased to apply to the PharmD program as the program is one area that corresponds to my career dreams. Being part of this program gives one the opportunity to gain an excellent experience in working and collaborating with various health care providers in the ward. But more importantly, it facilitates a practical environment in dealing more closely with patients. Hence, it helps to provide the ultimate health care services to patients. Also, it permits me to carry on gaining different knowledge, skills, and values in addition to those I have already developed during my undergraduate studies. My interest in being a clinical pharmacist was first aroused during my SPEP rotation in the hospital setting where I was really impressed with the role of clinical pharmacists who provide a consistent process of patient care with healthcare teams to maintain the appropriateness, effectiveness and safety of the medication use. Unlike a pharmacist, a clinical pharmacist has a more diversified responsibilities and closeness to direct patient care. Moreover, provides
Nurses are expected to provide a competent level of care that is indicative of their education, experience, skill, and ability to act on agency policies or procedures. In a study of 1,116 hospitals Bond, Raehl, and Franke (2001) found, “Medication errors occurred in 5.07% of the patients admitted each year to these hospitals. Each hospital experienced a medication error every 22.7 hours (every 19.73 admissions). Medication errors that adversely affected patient care outcomes occurred in 0.25% of all patients admitted to these hospitals/year”(p. 4). This means at least one medication error occurs every 24 hours in those facilities studied, and these are preventable errors. The main responsibilities of nurses when administering medications are to prevent or catch error, and report such error. Even if the physician or prescribing health care professional has made a mistake in the order, it is the nurse’s job to question the
Nurse’s should have a strong pharmaceutical knowledge background and be aware of the potential harm a medication could cause. In the process of medication administration, registered nurses are responsible to “determine that each medication order is clear, accurate, current and complete”. Medications should be withheld when a medication order is incomplete, illegible, ambiguous or inappropriate; with concerns being clarified with the prescriber (CNO, 2015)”. The critical care nurse demonstrated ineffective communication, which was shown by failing to ask the physician for clarification. Another instance of miscommunication is during medication reconciliation, which is a formal process in which healthcare providers work together to ensure that patient medication information is communicated consistently and accurately across transitions of care (Etchells, 2012).
The ability to become reflective in practice has become a necessary skill for health professionals. This is to ensure that health professionals are continuing with their daily learning and improving their practice. Reflective practice plays a big part in healthcare today and is becoming increasingly noticed.
This assignment was a great exposure to a situation where I as a pharmacist had to counsel a patient with HIV. It was a little embarrassing to imagine a friend as a HIV patient and talk to her. HIV is a very sensitive disease and answering even the questions of a fake patient regarding the condition is embarrassing. Even though I wrote the script, I was embarrassed to talk about such a sensitive issue on camera. However, the embarrassment lasted for a limited time only.
Community pharmacist has historically been seen as a health professional that dispenses medications according to the prescription and assures that the medication is provided to the patient in an accurate manner. Even though pharmacists have been provided training in numerous areas such as patient education, preventative care, and health & wellness, they often gear their clinical knowledge as a means of mainly reviewing the prescribed drug regimen to ensure that the dosing is appropriate and the drug interactions are minimal. However since then, the pharmacists’ roles have been expanding more than ever especially with the passing of the SB 493 bill. This bill officially recognizes pharmacists as “healthcare providers” and provides them a number of opportunities such as being part of the “core of the health-care system” and being reimbursed for their services in improving the health and wellness of the patients. Therefore, community pharmacist’s main role
First, here is some important background information about Pharmacists. A Pharmacist is someone who is trained and licensed to distribute medicinal drugs and to advise on their use. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook Pharmacists do all of the following: "Fill prescriptions, verify proper amounts of medication to give to patients, check whether the prescription will interact negatively with other drugs that a patient is taking or conditions the patient has, instruct patients on how to and when to take a prescribed medicine, Advise patients on potential side effects they may experience from taking the medicine, Advise patients about general health topics, such as diet, exercise, managing stress, and on other issues, such as what equipment or supplies would be best for a health problem, Keep records and do other administrative tasks, Complete insurance forms and work with insurance companies to be sure that patients get the medicine they need, Teach other healthcare practitioners about proper medication therapies for patients, and lastly oversee the work of pharmacy technicians and pharmacists training."() Some pharmacists participate in compounding, where they create medications by mixing ingredients themselves. Pharmacists tha...
The pharmacist can take part in face to face communication method. Two or more communication approaches are more effective than single approaches like face to face and patient information leaflet. On the other hand, a pharmacist can play important rule to make easy to understand leaflet supplied with a patient because some terminology and symbol will be difficult to understand for low literate people. Which could be explained by the pharmacist for better adherence to medical treatment.
I was also responsible for monitoring medication orders and reviewing patient profiles to ensure that the proper drugs and dosages were prescribed and that the pharmacy technician had prepared them properly. In many instances there were mistakes made in the preparation phase and sometimes even before, with incorrect dosages or drugs being prescribed and prepared, which could result in serious adverse effects for the patient. A clinical pharmacist’s role, however, is to make sure that these mistakes never reach the
Pharmacists often work together in a team with other healthcare professional like physicians and nurses. In the process, pharmacists will give advice to them on the selection of medication, by providing the evidences based on the dosage form, the side effects and possible interaction with food of the medication. On the other hand, pharmacists also take part in research and clinical studies. Recently, pharmacists are recruited to conduct pharmacy-based research in pharmacies. (Swanson, 2005)