Activities hospital pharmacy
Find out below what the role of the hospital pharmacy is.
In the hospital pharmacy, medicines are stored safely and carefully until they are prescribed and administered to patients.
The pharmacy ensures that the right medication is administered at the right time, to the right patient, according to the right procedure and charged at the right price.
- Compounds are preparations prepared by the pharmacy itself such as gelules (capsule), ointments and suppositories... This concerns both commonly used medication and preparations specifically 'tailor made' for a particular patient.
- Oncological preparations are prepared just before administration. In each case, the prescription is specifically adapted to the patient. This takes into account body surface area, blood values and maximum doses. The preparations are done in a separate room in a special cabinet with vertical extraction system, called the LAF (laminar airflow) cabinet. This LAF cabinet ensures that the preparation is sterile and that it protects the preparer.
- Medication is repackaged in the pharmacy. Many solid medicinal products (capsules or tablets) are not sold in unit doses by the manufacturer. The name, dose, expiration date and lot number are mentioned on the strip. When preparing medication based on patient and hour, this strip is cut and the information gets lost. By repackaging the medications using a repackaging machine, each tablet/capsule mentions the necessary information again.
The pharmacy charges for the medication consumed.
The pharmaceutical director guarantees quality of day-to-day activities around central sterilisation with:
- Advice on equipment selection and sterilisation methods
- Approval of sterilisation procedures.
- Supervision of the various steps prior to sterilisation: cleaning, disinfection and packaging of the material to be sterilised
- Monitoring the preservation conditions of sterile material.
The hospital pharmacy provides information and advice to physicians, nurses and patients.
The (deputy) pharmaceutical director actively participates in various committees within the hospital such as the Hospital Hygiene Committee, the Medical Material Committee and the Medical Pharmaceutical Committee.
In the hospital pharmacy, people are trained, procedures are drawn up and checks are built in to guarantee the quality of the supplied medication.
Through intensive cooperation with the nurses and the regular presence of a pharmacist on the nursing units, work on this quality continues even outside the pharmacy.
This enables quality control across the entire line, from prescription to administration.
