Communication Within and Beyond the Pharmacy Pt 2 Flashcards
What are some challenges you can face with Home infusion?
teaching difficulties for lay persons, unsanitary conditions, and delivery or storage issues for medications
As the compounding technician in a busy infusion center, you are to prepare the next day’s dose for Ms. Smith’s chemotherapy treatment. She is a regular patient and you usually order one kit ahead for her each month. Looking in the refrigerator, you cannot seem to find her medication. After asking the Infusion Manager, he states that a new patient came in yesterday and they used it on them. You ask the inventory manager to order another one for Ms. Smith and go back to work.
Which Key element would apply best here to avoid coming to the center tomorrow and not getting her dose? Explain why, and what you would do.
Assertiveness—Look on her profile and contact her nurse at the clinic. Explain that you will not have her medication for her appointment tomorrow and request she let the patient know to change her appointment until the next day. This will keep the patient from coming twice in the same week.
A nurse comes to the window with a STAT order for a drug that you just found out yesterday was recalled. The technician working at the front tells the nurse she will get that to the IV room and deliver it to her as soon as it is made. You are really busy, so you go back to work and assume the Pharmacist will discover this once they begin to enter the order in the system.
Which key element would apply best here and what should they have done?
Awareness—you should inform the Pharmacist immediately what you know, which will allow them to inform the nurse and ultimately the physician who may make a change.
The technician working with you today comes to the IV room and informs you there is a new order coming for an antibiotic IV therapy that needs to be delivered today. When you turn around to ask her who the patient is so that you can look for it, she is gone. You ask the other technician in the room with you to repeat what she said, and she tells you there was Vancomycin order coming. You know this is usually 1g/D250 mL and 7 to 14 bags. Since the mediation is in a powder vial, you start to dilute the vials, so you can be ahead of the order. When the order finally comes, it is not for Vancomycin, but another antibiotic and now the diluted vials will have to be wasted.
What key element could have helped avoid this and how?
Active listening is an important skill, and instead of asking a third person what was said, they should have asked the initial person or waited to know exactly what was needed. Assuming what they thought they heard cost the pharmacy the price of the medication as well as the time involved its preparation.
As a compounding technician, you will be faced with challenges in a strict and fast paced environment. The USP<797> guidelines cannot be neglected or bypassed, regardless of how immediate the need for the IV medication therapy is needed. The ____, ____, and ____ must be followed in every instance.
handwashing, garbing, and environmental practices
