Pharmacy department scope of services

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The pharmacy departments at Mercy Hospital and Unity Hospital work together to achieve optimal medication use and patient outcomes in a collaborative, patient focused environment. Our pharmacists are decentralized, working on the patient care units and operating room satellites, facilitating interactions with physicians and nurses and patients. Pharmacy technicians are centralized in the main pharmacies and operating room satellites to handle distribution activities, allowing the pharmacist to spend more time caring for our patients.

At both hospitals, pharmacists review each patient’s drug therapy for:

• Appropriate medication, dosage, duration and route of administration.
• Indication
• Effectiveness
• Safety
• Drug interactions, allergies or other contraindications
• Pharmacists provide drug information and education to patients and professional staff.

We are responsible for storing, preparing, distributing and dispensing of medications 24 hours a day, every day. Pharmacists participate in numerous multidisciplinary medication activities, including:

• Coordinating Pharmacy and Therapeutics, Nursing-Pharmacy and Medication Safety Steering Committees
• Conducting drug usage evaluations (DUEs)
• Reviewing pathways and care management related to medication usage.
• Minimizing adverse drug events
• Coordinating medication safety and medication-related performance improvement initiatives
• Managing medication distribution technology
• Participating in the Investigation Review Board (IRB) and supporting research involving medications
• Conducting education for hospital and medical staff on medication-related topics.
• Participating in interdisciplinary rounds on our ICU, geriatric and adult psych units
• Participating in pain management consults as part of our pain team
• Assisting with antibiotic stewardship through antibiotic rounds with our infectious disease physicians
• Managing antibiotics and the culture call back service for the emergency department
• Medication education through warfarin and bariatric consults and heart failure MTM clinic
• Provide medication therapy management for heart failure patients and Allina employees
• Responding to all medical emergency code

Facts & figures

Data from 2010