Omnicare Pharmacy-discuss

[ktwlpn]

In my experience we have a big problem getting meds delivered in a timely fashion.You all know that if we don't have a med available (even if it is something as simple as a multivit) the DOH wants us to document and make every reasonable effort to obtain the med. We have to inform the doc if a med is missed,fill out a pharmacy occurrence report yada yada yada....And we are prohibited from "borrowing" a med from another resident. What happens to us frequently is we'll fax labels well before the cut off time for same day delivery but then 2 days later get a written notice that the fax was illegible...HELLO? 2 days later? You are now probably out of some meds.Shouldn't someone be picking up the phone each and every time a fax is received that transmitted poorly and notify the sender? Then there are the times we get a notice stating "our records show this order was d/c'd on this date " and we look in the chart and no order was written on or around the date they cite. ow does that happen? Or-we don't receive a med that we have called them several times for-then we end up with NINE BOXES of the med....Then other times we can not get a refill because "our records show this med was ordered too soon" How does THAT happen? I remeber working in a facilty years ago in which pharmacy staff came in on a monthly basis and switched out the med carts-we were not responsible for routinely ordering refills.That system worked out well-I don't remeber ever having these problems.Omnicare is almost self serve-we have to peel and stick re-order labels on a sheet to fax...On top of our mega med pass....whoopee...

[Pharmacy Guy]

Traditional Contract Pharmacy services (providing limited days supply in blister cards) is a slow process (4 hours for stats.)

There are a few contract pharmacies that provide medications in PREDICTIVE SHORT CYCLES (7 days or less supplies) and also incorporate ON-SITE AUTOMATED DISPENSING for admissions and new orders.

These pharmacies have NEW ORDER and EMERGENCY medications stored in remote dispensing machines on-site, and most medications (oral/solid and injectibles) are taken from the machine once the order has been reviewed by a pharmacist with a remote connection to the on-site remote dispensing machine (typically within 30 mins.)

[clinicalteach]

I am a new Dir. of Residential services at an Assisted Living and I CAN'T STAND THIS COMPANY! THEY SUCK! NOTHING IS EVER RIGHT! i had to have my med techs go through charts to find d/c orders from almost two years back because they don't take them off the MARS...thye continually short me meds and don't include all the meds on the mars every month.

[clinicalteach]

oops, sorry not done! We had our prelim audit of the medroom. It was a good thing that I had gone through some of the charts, because I could show the state that yes, the docs had put down all required info for th PRN's and we had transcribed it correctly, but they had not put any of that informaiton on the mars. and in the past the facility had been penalized for that, because they hadn't discovered it

[sweetsleep28]

Here's a good one. They have a contract with a local cab company to deliver STAT orders from a local pharmacy to the facility. I had cab driver show up reeking of booze and an illegal substance with a bag containing a bottle of Vicodin!

The C2 script you faxed them can never seem to be located, even if you have the fax confirmation in your hand.

It's Tuesday and your admit from Friday still doesn't have their meds. Apparently you never received the admission orders.

[CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN]

Yikes...can't beleive I'm coming back here and admitting this, but it seems like it is getting better in our area.

I work weekends and hate calling for meds that weren't re-ordered in a timely way. I found out that when you call ask to speak with the pharmacists not the tech. Techs are great, but a lot of times they don't get that xyz med is important and should be sent on the first run or stat.

Maybe I get results because I use the old "more bees with honey" routine.

[nursesRkey]

I have worked in health care for 30 years and must of it in nursing homes. They only thing I have seen that has not changed/improved is pharmacy services. I'm so sick of "bingo cards" that when I finally have to move in to a nursing home I swear I will never play bingo!

[nursesRkey]

I have been in healthcare for nearly 30 years and much of it has been in nursing homes. During that time I have seen massive changes in the patients, their acuity, the length of stay, yada yada yada. How is it though, that the pharmacy companies have managed to continue to provide the same service and process without any real changes???? Must be nice!? I have spent so much time with bingo cards that once I'm admitted to one of these places, I swear, I will never play bingo.

[ktwlpn, LPN]

Sure, thing get missed and screwed up sometimes, but overall there are things you can do about fixing them before they cause problems instead of coming here to complain. I hear way too much complaining in LTC and not much taking responsibility. Why don't you talk to the pharmacist who comes in and tell him or her what's been happening and solve the problem?

I'm going to bump up this topic. We have thrown away our stone tablets and are finally comuterized. Our meds are on a cycle fill (except for liquids,eye gtts,ect which we must order ) and after almost 6 months we are starting to see a real improvement.

However some of the same boneheaded stuff keeps happening.We can order directly from the EMR (Sigma) or scan the label into Omniview.We do get a message telling us if the fill was successful or not.I orderd a med last week,got the "e fill successful" message and the med was not delivered.I called and was told that it was not available.."I don't know when we'll have it" I was told...Not good.I am guessing we would have gotten a fax in a day or so informing us of that-after she had missed 3 doses a day (we do have an ebox but this med is not in it) The dept. of health has dinged several LTC's in the area again for "missing doses" of meds-even meds like vits. So that's still and always will be a big deal. We sometimes are missing whole cards of meds on cycle fill day-I am not sure how that happens, often the resident involved will have had no new orders in the entire month.

An Omnicare rep makes the rounds once a month and she does what she can.She even acknowledges that the system is imperfect. We in LTC just like to gripe and complain-many think we seldom do any real nursing...