Intermediate care work and a database on unlicensed drugs win technician
awards
Tracy Sedgwick |
Promoting self administration of drugs for patients in an intermediate care facility is one of the projects which has won this year's AAH pharmacy technician of the year award. Tracy Sedgwick, senior pharmacy
technician for medicines management and intermediate care, Darlington
Memorial Hospital, led the entry and will present her work at the American
Society of Health-System Pharmacists midyear meeting in Las Vegas in
December.
The intermediate care facility is a residential home used by patients
over 55 years with a number of different conditions who have been discharged
from hospital but are currently unable to live at home. A pharmacy technician
post has been funded jointly by the hospital and Darlington Primary Care
Trust. The aim of the role is to ensure seamless medicines management
for patients.
The pharmacy technician visits many patients in hospital before they
have been transferred to the intermediate care facility. For patients
on a non-pharmacist led ward, a medication history is taken on the ward
by the pharmacy technician.
When a patient enters the intermediate care facility, the pharmacy technician
liaises with local community pharmacists and GP surgeries to ensure that
they have received a copy of the hospital discharge summary.
A medicines administration record is written by one of the senior carers
following admission to the intermediate care facility. The pharmacy technician
checks for accuracy and legibility and annotates any special requirements
for administration. The technician has discussion with patients during
their time in the facility to provide counselling and assess suitability
of formulations, containers, labels, etc.
In the past, none of the patients in the facility were administering
their own medicines. The introduction of the pharmacy technician has
resulted in 30 per cent of patients in the intermediate care facility
self medicating. Over 60 interventions have been made in the care of
49 patients.
Paul Townsend |
Providing information about unlicensed medicines through
a database was the other successful project in this year’s AAH
pharmacy technician of the year award. Paul Townsend, pharmacy technician,
Birmingham Children’s
Hospital, developed the database.
Unlicensed medicines form a large proportion of the medicines used at
Birmingham Children’s Hospital and previously information was not
usually readily available due to the lack of a product licence. Information
including generic name, brand name, strength, manufacturer, supplier
and country of origin are now recorded on the database. A digital image
of each product was taken to help with identification. An English translation
of all product information (eg, summary of product characteristics, patient
information leaflet) is made.
The database has the facility to record incoming supply details such
as the batch number and expiry date. The database is used as a reference
source by all staff in the pharmacy department, in particular, the medicines
information staff.
Future developments for the database may include access via the hospital’s
intranet site so that staff outside the pharmacy are able to obtain the
information. External access via the internet is also under consideration. |
Hospital Pharmacist