blogcutter (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blogcutter) wrote2014-08-04 11:00 am
blogcutter) wrote2014-08-04 11:00 am
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Your neighbourhood pharmacist...
A week or two ago, I was pleased to read that some pharmacies are establishing rules and policies about using a decent-sized font on the labels of pill vials. About time, I say! Now I have a few more suggestions for pharmacists.
First, the container itself. It's all very well to have a "child-proof" lid but please consider that it may also be elder-proof, arthritic-proof and just generally patient-proof! Pharmacists waste all this time "educating" us about the medicine itself, telling us all the information that's already on the information sheet inside the bag... and sticking pretty little sticky-labels on the bottle about not giving blood with this medication, avoiding exposure to sun with that one, not drinking or driving with yet another... but all the education in the world is pointless if you can't get the @#$%^ thing open! Some well-meaning friends and acquaintances have pointed out to me that I need only tell the pharmacist my preference. But surely the onus should be on the pharmacist to be proactive and ASK what the patient prefers? After all the dire warnings I've been reading about the perils and the slippery slope involved in selling MILK in 3-litre containers, I'm absolutely astounded that no one seems to have taken up the cause of inaccessible patient pill vials! When I was first prescribed Celebrex for my arthritis, I developed a habit of just loosely setting the lid upon the bottle between doses, which of course rather defeats the purpose of a child-proof, cat-proof lid - and to some degree of any lid, if you need to keep the bottle airtight and light-tight too. Now that the arthritis is under control, I find the push-and-turn type of lid considerably easier but if the diameter of the lid is too great (as has sometimes been the case), it doesn't fit comfortably in the palm of my (nor, I suspect many adults') hand while I do the "turn" part of the opening action.
Secondly, if you are going to offer patients the "convenience" of being able to order refills by touch-tone phone, PLEASE ensure that the pick-up date and time given by the robotic voice is in fact accurate! One time I was given a particular time to pick up my meds, went in well after that time and had to go back two more times on two different days before I actually managed to get them, over a week after they were due. And it wasn't even one of those drugs like oxycontin that I know are a bit "iffy" in terms of supply.
Thirdly, make sure that ALL the prescriptions you put in that little white bag are in fact intended for the person (or delegate of that person) to whom you hand them. That surely is so fundamental that it should should be covered in any Pharmacy 101 or Pharmacist's Assistant 101 course or whatever. In one instance I went to pick up a DMARD, Methotrexate, at the pharmacy (a major national chain) and it was considerably more expensive than I had expected. But I guess I didn't quite believe that the pharmacist had made a mistake - instead I assumed that I had probably, without thinking, submitted a prescription that had both Celebrex (a much more expensive drug) AND Methotrexate on the same script, and just handed them my credit card. Once I got home, I realized I also had a prescription for someone with a vaguely similar name. I promptly took it back and the pharmacy-person did take it back and issue a credit (which she warned might take a bit of time to appear on my credit card). Still, her reaction was certainly not what I expected. If anything, she seemed slightly annoyed at having to undo a transaction that was the pharmacy's fault in the first place. Luckily I'm still fairly healthy and able-bodied and was able to get back there without too much hassle. But can you imagine if I hadn't noticed for several weeks and poor Mr. Carter Bloggs (not his real name) had had to manage without a critical medication? Come to think of it, maybe that's what happened to MY medication in the instance I mentioned in the paragraph above! Remember that scene in "It's a Wonderful Life" where young George Bailey saves the druggist from making just such a career-limiting and lives-destroying move?
Lest you think from the above paragraphs that I'm down on pharmacists generally, let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. I really believe that medicare can only remain sustainable if we make full use of medical professionals other than (though obviously not to the exclusion of) doctors, especially specialists. Generally I believe that we DON'T avail ourselves enough of the skills and expertise of nurses, nurse practitioners, midwives, health care technicians and technologists of various sorts - and, of course, pharmacists. I was very impressed at how smoothly my flu shot went last fall, at a Rexall pharmacy near where I live. On the other hand, I was rather put off, many years ago, when my union endorsed an order-your-meds-through-the-mail program aimed at saving the consumer lots of money on prescription drugs. What would this do to the jobs of pharmacists, I wondered? Surely as good unionists we should be protecting jobs like this in the knowledge economy? Anyway, I never used the mail-order drug scheme and I guess a lot of others were leery of it too, because I think less than a year later, it was cancelled.
Would a national pharmacare program alleviate some of the problems I've had with the existing system or could it potentially make them worse? I'd like to think that it would improve things because at present, many people who have no coverage through their employment (and even a few who do) are literally facing crippling drug costs.
First, the container itself. It's all very well to have a "child-proof" lid but please consider that it may also be elder-proof, arthritic-proof and just generally patient-proof! Pharmacists waste all this time "educating" us about the medicine itself, telling us all the information that's already on the information sheet inside the bag... and sticking pretty little sticky-labels on the bottle about not giving blood with this medication, avoiding exposure to sun with that one, not drinking or driving with yet another... but all the education in the world is pointless if you can't get the @#$%^ thing open! Some well-meaning friends and acquaintances have pointed out to me that I need only tell the pharmacist my preference. But surely the onus should be on the pharmacist to be proactive and ASK what the patient prefers? After all the dire warnings I've been reading about the perils and the slippery slope involved in selling MILK in 3-litre containers, I'm absolutely astounded that no one seems to have taken up the cause of inaccessible patient pill vials! When I was first prescribed Celebrex for my arthritis, I developed a habit of just loosely setting the lid upon the bottle between doses, which of course rather defeats the purpose of a child-proof, cat-proof lid - and to some degree of any lid, if you need to keep the bottle airtight and light-tight too. Now that the arthritis is under control, I find the push-and-turn type of lid considerably easier but if the diameter of the lid is too great (as has sometimes been the case), it doesn't fit comfortably in the palm of my (nor, I suspect many adults') hand while I do the "turn" part of the opening action.
Secondly, if you are going to offer patients the "convenience" of being able to order refills by touch-tone phone, PLEASE ensure that the pick-up date and time given by the robotic voice is in fact accurate! One time I was given a particular time to pick up my meds, went in well after that time and had to go back two more times on two different days before I actually managed to get them, over a week after they were due. And it wasn't even one of those drugs like oxycontin that I know are a bit "iffy" in terms of supply.
Thirdly, make sure that ALL the prescriptions you put in that little white bag are in fact intended for the person (or delegate of that person) to whom you hand them. That surely is so fundamental that it should should be covered in any Pharmacy 101 or Pharmacist's Assistant 101 course or whatever. In one instance I went to pick up a DMARD, Methotrexate, at the pharmacy (a major national chain) and it was considerably more expensive than I had expected. But I guess I didn't quite believe that the pharmacist had made a mistake - instead I assumed that I had probably, without thinking, submitted a prescription that had both Celebrex (a much more expensive drug) AND Methotrexate on the same script, and just handed them my credit card. Once I got home, I realized I also had a prescription for someone with a vaguely similar name. I promptly took it back and the pharmacy-person did take it back and issue a credit (which she warned might take a bit of time to appear on my credit card). Still, her reaction was certainly not what I expected. If anything, she seemed slightly annoyed at having to undo a transaction that was the pharmacy's fault in the first place. Luckily I'm still fairly healthy and able-bodied and was able to get back there without too much hassle. But can you imagine if I hadn't noticed for several weeks and poor Mr. Carter Bloggs (not his real name) had had to manage without a critical medication? Come to think of it, maybe that's what happened to MY medication in the instance I mentioned in the paragraph above! Remember that scene in "It's a Wonderful Life" where young George Bailey saves the druggist from making just such a career-limiting and lives-destroying move?
Lest you think from the above paragraphs that I'm down on pharmacists generally, let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. I really believe that medicare can only remain sustainable if we make full use of medical professionals other than (though obviously not to the exclusion of) doctors, especially specialists. Generally I believe that we DON'T avail ourselves enough of the skills and expertise of nurses, nurse practitioners, midwives, health care technicians and technologists of various sorts - and, of course, pharmacists. I was very impressed at how smoothly my flu shot went last fall, at a Rexall pharmacy near where I live. On the other hand, I was rather put off, many years ago, when my union endorsed an order-your-meds-through-the-mail program aimed at saving the consumer lots of money on prescription drugs. What would this do to the jobs of pharmacists, I wondered? Surely as good unionists we should be protecting jobs like this in the knowledge economy? Anyway, I never used the mail-order drug scheme and I guess a lot of others were leery of it too, because I think less than a year later, it was cancelled.
Would a national pharmacare program alleviate some of the problems I've had with the existing system or could it potentially make them worse? I'd like to think that it would improve things because at present, many people who have no coverage through their employment (and even a few who do) are literally facing crippling drug costs.
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