Omnicare Pharmacy-discuss

Makes me glad that borrowing IS allowed at my facility as long as we fill out a form explaining it and return it within 1 or 2 business days. With new admits esp those who come on friday afternoon...a problem in itself... we ask the family to bring with them 3 days of meds. sometimes they dont have so we have the doc order the med to begin on Sunday (Saturday is our day of rest) so we are covered.
Regarding polypharm syndrome- YOU ARE SO RIGHT!! but some meds are essential (like synthroid or sinemet or antibiotics..) By law the nurse and doctor have to go over the patients med list every MONTH (pain in the neck) and reevaluate continued need. Its just too easy for a doc to keep a long term med on the list so the nurses job is to challenge him and together see what can be D/C'd safely. Its a great system. It works because the nurse is on board to follow up and eval any changes in status and report. Certain meds need the ok from a specialist who has to eval once a year.
When I worked in NY, we instituted a drug holiday on Saturdays- only the bare essentials (like synthroid, digoxin, etc) and it was very successful. BP's were monitored and stable, BM's moved without the Colace, etc.
True story: once in the hospital, (i was private dutying a relative) on friday evening doc ordered a med that was unavailable, nurse called the doc who just hung up on her, I told her to call his supervisor to report the problem with the unavailable drug and she was scared- she ended up just signing for it even though she didn't have it. I told her it was wrong, she answered, "You dont understand hospital politics!!" Glad to be in LTC!

Kwlpn...we have the same issues and have the same type of p and p. We don't have a huge E Box tho. We had major issues with narcs and finally got a bigger supply in the E box for them. Everyone was on vicodin, but up until a few months ago..none in the E box. They weren't replacing the meds either. Now we get it changed 3 times a week.

The biggest issue is delivery time. Even STATs are 4 hrs or more. I think a big problem is communication with the nursing home too. If something isn't coming on the next run or they are out of stock, we should be notified ASAP with a phone call so that we can call the doc for a new order.

You get an admission at 7pm or so and fax the orders by that time (and I call them) I might not get the meds until noon the next day. Having a larger supply in our E box might help that one.

Michelle. why cant your ask new admits to bring with them 2 days of pills? Ask your SW.

Omnicare . . . . AKA Omnivore because they ate up all the little mom and pop pharmacies that truly knew what customer service meant!!! They have by far the WORST customer service of any company I have ever worked with!

Oh I have so much to say about these guys!

We use them.

1. If someone is ordered a prn narcotic, something like 1 vicodin q6hrs, we seem to get four cards of thirty pills - then they only use about half a card of the vicodin and we can't send the vicodin back. All my patients are medicare, so is there any wonder medicare costs the taxpayer so much?

2. I ran into the same problem of having about ten meds for different patients missing last weekend. I must have spent an hour all told out of my shift chasing up the pharmacy and running to different floors to see if I could "borrow" the med I was out of - none of them were narcotics. This is a frequent occurence. As all my patients are medicare we only get weekly supplies of meds - if one med is not ordered on the exact right day before 4pm then we can be out of it for a day.

3. The weekend before during my noon med pass a pharmacist waltzes in and says "I need your med books" I say "Who are you?" He says "ugh, I'm ________, the pharmacist at omnicare" I say "Well, I'm in the middle of the med pass, you'll have to wait" When finished with the med pass I say to him "You can wait 15 minutes or so so I can check I signed every med out or you can have the books now"

He takes the books. About two hours later, he's gone and I have the charge nurse running upstairs saying this pharmacist reported me for having med holes. The next week I get a message from the DON saying she heard I had "quite a few med holes"

Meds from home need to be checked by pharmacy first and need to come in the same bottle ordered. At least this used to be policy. Rarely do we have residents able to bring them in or family do do this normally they are d/c'd from the hospital without warning.
Heck..I'm happy to get a code status, family contacts and a bit heads up from SW before an admit comes in. (yeah...we have problems with comunication)

You're a hundred percent right, and we have a good relationship with our pharmacist so she signs off on it- What else can we do when the Discharge is Friday afternoon!!Meds must be in the original untampered packaging with clear exp. date and lot #.
Some families don't bring some of the drugs so we have the doctor order it for Sunday, If its imperative that they receive the medication and it cant be borrowed, our pharmacist will bring it special, Mind you- she will kvetch about it for about 6 months, make sure we know how what a martyr she is ( had to walk in the snow 6 miles uphill both ways when she had 104 fever, sick hubby and grandson and her only pair of shoes have holes on the bottom-LOL). SO we try not to ask any favors but sometimes- well - what can you do?

Question, what do you do with a dropped pill- that hits the ground= do you pick it up wipe it off and use it, or throw it out?

Thrown away...but given the fact that it could be the last one and all the other pharmacy issues...thought about twice, LOL.

We have delivery drivers. Pharmacist comes once a month to check the charts.

I always throw away dropped pills. If it's a narcotic I get someone else to cosign.

We would NEVER accept meds from a patient's home. Who knows what's really in those bottles? We have a local pharmacy and if we're really in a jam, we send one of the staff to walk over there and pick up a few days worth of meds. Never had anything like this at any other facility.