Pharmacy
Our Pharmacies
Strong Health Pharmacy Department Earns National Award
Strong Ties Pharmacy Cited Among Best Practices
by American Society of Health-System Pharmacists
A pharmacy satellite developed at a community-based mental health
clinic to improve patient care has been cited among this year’s
best practices in health-system pharmacies. Representatives from
the University of Rochester Medical Center and Strong Health’s
Department of Pharmacy are in New Orleans today to accept one of
only six national Best Practices Awards at the 30,000-member American
Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ (ASHP) Midyear Clinical
Meeting and Exhibits.
ASHP selected Strong’s entry, “Establishment of an
Ambulatory Pharmacy in a Community Mental Health Center,” among
80 applications from across the country. The annual award program
recognizes innovation and outstanding leadership in health-system
pharmacy, with emphasis on areas that significantly improve the
quality of patient care. Accepting the award for the Medical Center
and Strong Health are Pharmacy Director Thomas E. O’Brien,
Pharm. D., and Kumar Maharaj and David Olson, pharmacists instrumental
in developing and implementing the program.
The Strong Ties pharmacy, a satellite developed within Strong’s
established community mental health center, opened in 2000 to provide
ambulatory pharmacy services to 1,100 clients with severe and persistent
mental illness. “These clients face unique challenges as
they recover and reintegrate into the community,” Maharaj
said. “They frequently don’t adhere to their prescribed
treatment and require intensive medication management, especially
since they are more likely to be diabetic and nicotine-dependent
than the general population.”
Before the Strong Ties pharmacy opened, many of the program’s
clients had difficulty getting medications. They relied on a variety
of retail pharmacies throughout the community that may have been
inconvenient to access or did not regularly stock everything they
needed. In many cases, clients would not comply with medication
instructions because they could not afford their prescriptions
if they lacked insurance or their co-payments were beyond their
means.
The on-site pharmacy provides a one-stop resource for any medications
that clients require, supported by a robust treatment adherence
program, educational activities and wellness initiatives. To improve
care, the Strong Ties pharmacy tracks client prescriptions, having
refills ready as needed. Pharmacists notify providers when clients
aren’t taking medications or take them improperly, and provide
access to free medications for those who cannot afford them by
using stocks of samples and linking clients with programs that
provide medications for indigent populations. In addition, the
pharmacy’s staff provides education programs to maximize
the effects of medications in their treatment, and wellness programs
to help with health issues commonly faced by its clients such as
diabetes education and smoking cessation programs.
“The Strong Ties model demonstrates that clinical pharmacy
can be successfully introduced to ambulatory clinics in health
care systems,” O’Brien said. “It provides a template
for the introduction of a clinical pharmacy practice that improves
client outcomes, adds revenue to the health care system and enhances
the profile of clinical pharmacy in the community. We are proud
of Kumar and our team at Strong Ties and thrilled to see their
efforts to improve patient care gain national attention.”
The novel pharmacy program has previously been cited with an Outstanding
Service Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill,
and East House Corporation’s Quality Award.
|
