Health Resources

Drug Reference This comprehensive drug reference answers your medication questions: 33,000 prescriptions, over-the-counter products, and neutraceuticals.

The Pharmacy staff is comprised of a full time Pharmacist with Doctor of Pharmacy Degree and two State Board Certified Pharmacy Technicians. Part time staff includes State Board Certified Pharmacy Technicians and experienced Pharmacists with Doctor of Pharmacy Degrees and decades of hospital experience. With a small community attitude, each patient is treated as if they were family, because they are.

The pharmacy plays a vital role in the care of every patient that comes to Martin General. Our goal is to provide safe, effective, and cost-wise pharmaceutical care. In addition to the management of all medication use hospital wide, the pharmacy provides many important clinical services and is totally vested in medication safety.

Pharmacy Clinical Services:

• Pharmacists review all antibiotic therapies to ensure the doses are appropriate and that all patient allergies have been taken into consideration
• Answering drug information questions from nurses, physicians, and patients
• Pharmacists can automatically switch some intravenous (IV) medications to oral. This reduces the risks of IV therapy and saves the patient money
• The Pharmacy prepares and monitors all Parenteral Nutrition. This type of nutrition is given intravenously, and used for patients having trouble eating, or those with digestive problems
• Compounding medications or IV solutions that are not available on a commercial basis
• Monitoring of patient liver and kidney function. Pharmacists recommend dosage adjustments to Physicians. Many drugs are eliminated by these organs, and if they are not functioning normally, drugs can accumulate in the body.
• Continuously monitor patient’s medication profiles (each medication the Physcian orders for the patient). With each new order drug allergies, potential drug-drug interactions, drug-disease state interactions, appropriate dosing, and duplicate therapies are checked
• Responding to Physician consults to dose and follow medications, especially antibiotics
• Adding or deleting medications that the hospital carries (drug formulary) based on the latest clinical research. Utilizing new and upcoming drugs, and finding a place for older, seasoned medications

Pharmacy & Patient Safety

• Pyxis 4000 electronic drug stations are on each nursing floor. These stations store medicines directly by the nursing stations for immediate patient administration. Each station is tailored to its unit, having more or less medicines as necessary to avoid errors. The Pyxis stations use barcode technology so each medicine must be triple checked: by the pharmacy, med station, and nurse.
• The Pyxis units help track medications about to go out of date allowing quick and safe restocking
• Pharmacists participate on the Quality Improvement team, a team dedicated to finding ways to continually improve patient safety
• High alert drugs are marked both in the main pharmacy and in their designated areas in the med stations to alert staff to be extra vigilant before use.

Know your health. The importance of medication awareness

Written by Attila Vamos, Martin General Hospital Pharmacy Director
Published Thursday, July 8, 2011 in the Martin General Hospital Healthbeat