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Medication Use Management Wrap Up
Posted on: July 15, 2009
Today, I attended didactic sessions as the final requirement for the Medication Use Management rotation. Although the material could have been really “dry”, Richard and Lara managed to make the session interactive and more interesting. We talked about different topics such as restrictions, drug shortages and formulary changes and applied real-life examples. A few issues that we discussed were the removal of nystatin powder of the market and formulary change from tinzaparin to dalteparin. We also looked at the CADTH website and looked through the Common Drug Review (CDR) database. A few things I learned about from the session and the rotation that I did not know before were:
- The P & T Committee makes recommendations (to add or not to add a drug to formulary), however HAMAC has the ultimate power to approve it.
- The Antibiotic Review Subcommittee sometimes makes recommendations to the P & T Committee.
- The P & T Committee does not just deal involve the formulary. Other issues they are responsible for are medication safety, adverse drug event monitoring, medication error prevention, etc.
VGH and Aberdeen
Posted on: June 26, 2009
I spent part of my morning at VGH getting an overview of their dispensary. My main purpose was to compare and constrast a unit dose system (RJH) vs a traditional dose system (VGH). VGH batches every 7 days (or every 3 or 4 days for some wards). I noticed two major issues with this. 1) There is a lot of medication wastage occurs as orders often get discontinued before 7 days are used up and if they aren’t unit dose packed the medications are disposed of. 2) The chance of a picking error increases also with traditional dose systems.
I spent the other part of my day at Aberdeen Hospital which is a LTC/rehab facility. There are so many differences compared to acute care sites. The majority of the medications are blister packed and the set up is quite different as the pharmacists do all the order entry and the technicians do the filling. Meds are sent up in blister packs with 35 tablets/capsules per pack. MARs print once a month only (versus q24h at RJH). The pharmacists also do some clinical work at different LTC sites and do medication reviews with patients and their family members.
Overall, it was interesting to see how different sites are run as I have only worked at RJH.
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