Healthcare Interprofessional Team

My interest in the PGY1 Residency Program at Kaiser Permanente Orange County has been sparked by my attraction to the field of hospital pharmacy. More specifically, I am interested in an inpatient hospital pharmacy experience that the Kaiser Permanente provides. During summer 2017, I was an intern pharmacist at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, and I learned a lot about the pharmacist’s role in a hospital setting. After completing that rotation, I hoped I could learn more about the pharmacist’s role in a hospital setting. The reason I am more interested in residency program at Kaiser Permanente is many different kinds of experiences that Kaiser provides, such as Ambulatory Care, and Drug Use Management.

I have spent my time as a student pharmacist learning about opportunities within clinical pharmacy and making certain that I was equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed. In my pursuit, I became an active member of pharmaceutical organizations, held multiple leadership positions, attended clinical conferences, established research projects, participated in community service events, and other initiatives. I excelled academically, which was manifested in not just a high academic standard but also in tutoring fellow classmates and arranging sessions with other pharmacy students to help them improve time management and study skills. I shadowed pharmacists and residents before my advanced pharmacy practice experiences commenced to discover which areas of clinical pharmacy I found intriguing. I have obtained valuable pharmacy practice experiences in five specialties thus far including inpatient internal medicine, long term acute care, geriatrics and telehealth, and primary care. Through these rotations, I built upon the knowledge I acquired from my didactic courses but also developed patient-centered approaches and strengthened my clinical skills. I enjoyed many aspects of my rotations, including contributing pharmacotherapy recommendations, providing patient education, attending rounds and interdisciplinary team meetings – all of which have solidified my desire

I also work closely with local pharmacies and doctors around the changing of a person’s medication. It’s important that we work closely together to ensure that the service user is having the correct medication at all times.

In my NUR-301 Class, I had the opportunity to practice on Interprofessional Education. Our nursing student team was partnered with first year pharmacy school students to learn about each other professions and to study on how we could work in a team of healthcare professionals to attain a common goal. As this was my first time experience to meet other students from a different department of Notre Dame of Maryland University, I was not sure what to expect from our discussions. Even if I have some experiences working both in hospitals and in a pharmacy, I was no fully aware of the responsibilities of a pharmacist directly to the patient or to the healthcare field specialists.

With the huge shift in the U.S. healthcare system, healthcare services are now trending towards value-based outcomes.1 With passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it has become increasingly important to improve quality of care while simultaneously reducing health care costs.2 Pharmaceutical care services are one of the key components that has an essential impact on optimizing therapy outcomes; minimizing cost and enhancing quality of life of chronically ill patients. Community pharmacists are the third largest healthcare provider group in the world after physicians and nurses.3 Despite the fact that many studies have shown that community pharmacists’ provision of direct patient care can lead to improved patient outcomes and reduced health care costs. However, community pharmacists are the only health professionals who are not primarily rewarded for delivering health care and hence are under-utilized as public health professionals.3 Community pharmacists could help to improve health by reducing drug-related adverse events and promoting better medication adherence, which in turn may help in reducing unnecessary provider visits, hospitalizations, and readmissions while strengthening primary care delivery across the health system.

Another opportunity that I had to learn about the pharmacists’ roles at Hardin Memorial came through observing the role of the Coumadin clinic at the hospital. I was able to sit in the clinic and learn how the RN collected each patient’s INR and sent the information to the pharmacist to dose. The pharmacists took the time to walk me through how they dosed each Coumadin patient who came in through the clinic, and how they adjusted the patient’s dose if the their INR was too high or too low, as well as how they bridged the patient by using Lovenox if the patient was having a certain procedure. I had a variety of experiences working with the pharmacy and hospital staff, which ultimately compiled

A well versed and competent healthcare practitioner is the key to maximizing patients safety and minimizing medication risk. Collaboration with the patient's healthcare provider is also necessary to ensure an integrated approach to patient

Cancer clinical trials require multi-team systems to provide cohesive care that promotes enrollment and provides effective treatment for patients. Research and clinic teams often have different goals; the research team prioritizes protocol implementation and the clinic team prioritizes clinic care. An inability to coordinate cancer care through distribution of responsibilities, communication and understanding of goals can ultimately lead to rivalries, differing perceptions and affect the efficiency of the multi-team system. Although there are studies exploring these dynamics within multi-teams, there is limited information on this in the setting of cancer care.

Importantly, we were required to do our service activities at Walgreen pharmacies in groups of 2. Given each student utilizes unique communication method to approach patients, working as team during our service activities at Walgreens pharmacies provided us a great opportunity to learn from each other. Furthermore, OTC labs and community service activities at Walgreens pharmacies provided us an exceptional opportunity to understand the professional functions of the pharmacist in community settings and begin to develop critical thinking skills for providing pharmaceutical care in community practice. Also, It helped us demonstrate the characteristics of a professional in practice-related activities. It was also a great opportunities to lean how to use community resources to provide essential services. Moreover, community service activities at the Walgreens pharmacies allowed us to apply what we have learned during OTC course, for example, medication/disease counseling, optimization of medication use, issues related to nutrient-medication

This author was lucky enough to be able to see the workings of an outpatient pharmacy at a local hospital. There are different people who help run a pharmacy. In this small pharmacy there were two pharmacists a pharmacy tech and a receptionist.

Outpatient pharmacy is a diverse clinical practice environment where the pharmacist plays roles such as, but not limited to, dispensing, counseling, medication therapy management (MTM), and transition of care. The patient also has the opportunity to speak one-on-one with the pharmacist and schedule different services that are offered. The pharmacists have to collaborate with different health care providers and have great teamwork ability. The income of these pharmacists range from $80,000 to $100,000 or more annually and they

Patient care roles are a patient centered plan for pharmacists to follow that makes enhancing patients’ health, in the long run, a mission. Depending on the type of job, the diagram in the article may or may not accurately depicts some of our patient care roles. For instance, during my IPPE this summer, I had the amazing experience of shadowing a consultant pharmacist at the VA hospital, and the diagram accurately depicts her patient care role. First, she collected the medications list (prescribed and nonprescribed) of each patient in the facility, and the illness each medication was treating.

My primary goal of getting a practical experience in pharmacy was to develop the knowledge and skills to actively participate in patient care, improve self-confidence, approach any task with an open mind, and having eagerness to learn what the rotation has to offer. I participated and attempted all the tasks that were assigned by my preceptor throughout my rotation. A very first activity I learned to perform was counting medications properly before pharmacists dispense them. While working on this task, I also learned to change the manufacturing number and do the partials for medications. Although it seemed like a very simple task, it requires attention, fast pace, and accuracy. Most of the errors in the pharmacy occur due to incorrect medication, dosage strength, or dosage form while filling so it is critical to pay attention to small details. Furthermore, my preceptors allowed me to perform vaccinations from the very first day which helped me develop one-on-one interactions with patients and improved my knowledge on administrating and recommending different vaccinations to patients. Since pharmacists hold a great source of information on vaccinations and they are easily accessible in neighborhood, pharmacists play a prominent role in prevention and safety of public health. When I heard news of my preceptor’s participation in flu clinic at the Village of Hanover park, I offered him my help for several hours. After administrating vaccines continuously

Today in the 21st century the roles of pharmacist have expanded tremendously. Before pharmacist had the role of solely dispensing drugs. Pharmacists were limited to only being regulatory or clinical pharmacist. Back then they were called medical purveyors who were much like today’s regulatory pharmacist and hospital pharmacist who are similar to hospital pharmacist. Now pharmacists carry many roles in healthcare. Pharmacist can play roles in public health, community, health systems, state, and federal government.

In addition, we will initiate a working relationship with local physicians to create a collaborative practice agreement that will show the value of a pharmacist contributing to patient care and service. Overall, we want to create a friendly and reliable image that will attune to patient and health providers needs.