The Walgreens On Thomasville Road Essay

Why is it important that a pharmacist knows each medication that a person is taking before they provide a new drug?

Complete the following questions below and upload your responses in an rtf document to your clinical instructor (Gouldy, Denise) through WT class by 0800 Monday. The medications listed in “X” do not need to be uploaded but will be needed in the clinical setting (you may use the Med Sheet Template found in the OB folder to complete the information needed on the drugs).

Walgreens’ principal activity is to operate a chain of retail drugstores that sells prescription and nonprescription drugs. The company also carries additional product lines like general merchandise including cosmetics, food, beverages and photofinishing. Walgreens is one of the fastest growing retailers in the United States and led the chain drugstore industry in retail sales and profits last year.

Thank you Lord! I am very grateful to be able to successfully finish my third rotation at Walgreens pharmacy in Wellington, FL. My preceptor was Dr. Andrew Guvetis, a graduate from Nova Southern University and he has been working with Walgreens for a little over 2 years. During the first day, I noticed that this Walgreens was somewhat different from the others. It was designed like a wellness clinic where the pharmacist can spend some time during the day sitting on a desk right outside the pharmacy check-out counter and be accessible to answer any questions patients may have. It also had a big consultation room with comfy seating, a table including a sink and counter where a pharmacist can prepare immunizations or perform several screening tests. Walgreens offers health tests every day which help determine possible risks for heart disease or are looking for convenient ways to manage diabetes or high blood pressure. Some of the services offered include: cholesterol and blood pressure tests, body composition test and a comprehensive medication review. Test results are provided within minutes and it includes a pharmacist consultation as well.

There are several types of medication, each has a purpose and function needed for their administration via the different routes.

There are four important steps at Walgreens to ensure the prescriptions are dispensed accurately and safely. The four steps has its own buttons on the computer screen system and allows for the pharmacists and the technicians to see at what step the patients’ medications are. The first step is the Rx entry. All prescriptions in the Rx entry can be found by pressing the F1 key. This step is where all the prescriptions and E-scripts go in. All the patients’ information, insurance, and prescription information is entered into the system. All the refills, new scripts, and even insurances rejections are handled at this step. Once the prescriptions went through, any hardcopy prescriptions will be scanned onto the computer and will move on to the next step.

Walgreens Pharmacy operates in an Oligopoly market structure. The retail pharmacy environment also has the Oligopoly characteristic of significant entry barriers. The barriers are restriction of ownership and restriction of where the business can be established (Walgreens). The ownership barriers are established by the government and state only Pharmacists or an incorporated company that has directors and shareholder members that are registered pharmacists are allowed to open and own a pharmacy. Licensed pharmacists are required to be on duty during the hours of operations.

Walgreens was founded in 1901 measuring 50 feet by 20 feet by Charles R. Walgreen, Sr.. Mr. Walgreen was born near Galesburg, Illinois and his family later relocated to Dixon, Illinois at town about 60 miles north of his birthplace. Mr. Walgreens’ father was a farmer who turned into a businessperson and saw a great potential of the Rock River Valley (Walgreen, n.d., p.1). At age 16, Charles Walgreen had his first experience working in a drug store. He didn’t always have pleasurable experiences but it was a job with pay. He had an accident at a shoe factory that cut off his left middle finger from the top joint. This injury also stops him from playing any sports at school. After a year and a half with the

The classification of medicines are all related to the Medicines Act 1968, while working with medication it is good to have an understanding and working knowledge of the common types of medication by training that should be provided by you

Mirroring its main market competitor, CVS, Walgreens has also added Envision Pharma, a pharmacy-benefit management company, to its portfolio. (CVS acquired Caremark in 2007) (Bells, 2016) Due to previous acquisitions and mergers, Walgreens is currently the most accessible pharmacy retailer in the U.S., servicing 8 million customers each day and filling approximately 894 million prescriptions and immunizations, every year. (Walgreens, n.d.)

In this rotation, I learned to type up prescriptions and resolve third-party issues. Learning about third-party rejections were confusing and difficult for me at first; however, I was able to resolve them after I processed a couple of prescriptions. Also, I learned production or dispensing medications, listened to voicemail messages, transfer prescriptions, and apply pharmacy law to controlled substances. During my rotation, I got the chance to see the pharmacist performing immunization. Through out this rotation, I was able to understand and see the workflow of a retail pharmacy. This rotation was amazing and it gave me a great overview of a retail pharmacy.

Some of the NAPLEX learning gaps, I had before rotations started were: drug interactions, adverse effects and drug-induced illness, specific uses and indications and dosing for drugs, proposed uses and indications for dietary supplements and complementary and alternative medicine, and actions and mechanisms of actions of drugs. Throughout my hospital rotation, I have learned a lot about determining drug-drug interactions mostly seen with antibiotics and heart medications such as a warfarin and amiodarone. The best way for me to learn the interactions is to learn the mechanism of actions and the metabolism of each medication. It is easier to learn the mechanism and metabolism of the medication by thinking about the classification of the medication

Pharmacists are highly educated in the form, uses, and interactions of certain medicines and also in how those medicines affect normal body functions. They keep thorough patient medication records, which contain

I chose this topic because I am a certified Pharmacy Technician. Medications are naturally an interest for me and any opportunity to learn more about them may benefit my current experience and future in Science.

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.