Preparation for a medical mission to Jamaica--pharmacy's perspective (original) (raw)
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Opportunities and responsibilities for pharmacists on short-term medical mission teams
Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, 2009
Background: American medical mission teams commonly travel to developing countries for short-term provision of clinical services. Although medications play an important role in the work of these teams, how to plan and organize a mission field pharmacy has been seldom described in the literature. Objective: To describe pharmacist participation in medical mission work. Summary: Global standards and policies, as well as traditional best practices, should be applied to the selection, acquisition, use, and disposition of medications taken into a host country. This report describes the roles and responsibilities of pharmacists in planning and organizing a mission pharmacy and in delivering quality pharmacy services in the field. Conclusion: Pharmacists have an important contribution to make to medical mission teams. Pharmacist knowledge of drug products, regulatory issues, medication storage, dispensing, patient consultation, therapeutic substitution, and pharmacy organization and workflow is ideally suited for mission field work.
The Provision of Prescription-Only Medicines for Use on UK-based Overseas Expeditions
Wilderness & Environmental Medicine
Expedition teams without accompanying medical professionals traveling overseas from the United Kingdom frequently carry medical kits containing Prescription Only Medicines (POMs). Access to safe, basic POMs whilst on expedition is important, as the quality and availability of medicines in-country may not be acceptable and delay in treatment may be hazardous. At present there is no published guidance relating to drug acquisition and administration in these situations. In the UK, a number of different practices are currently in use, with uncertainty and medico-legal concerns currently hampering safe and efficient provision of POMs on overseas expeditions. A guideline is proposed for the management of prescription only medications in an expedition setting.
Delineating pharmacy processes in Haiti
Haiti's 2010 earthquake led to tremendous loss of life and human suffering. Since 2010, many NGO’s, humanitarian and medical mission groups rushed to aid and rescue disaster victoms. Several clinics and hospitals began to hire and train Haitian doctors and nurses. However, pharmacists in Haiti remain elusive. Pharmacy as a profession is not well recognized in Haiti. This study evaluated pharmacy processes across Northern Haiti. A 3 member interdisciplinary team travelled to 6 clinics and 2 hospitals. PCurrent pharmacy practice does not often involve trained pharmacists or technicians. This study identified pharmacy issues as follows – Inventory management, Patient communications and Workplace Logistics. Currently sites manage their inventories manually with extensive paper records. This is problematic since medical teams visit multiple times and it is challenging to identify and effectively manage large inventories. Patient communications are challenging culturally, patients exp...
Pharmacist roles in healthcare delivery keep evolving with additional roles involving the pharmaceutical care, a paradigm shift from medicine seller to a well encompassing act of providing necessary informations on drugs, management of diseases, provision of first aid treatment, administration of vaccines and many more. Travel health is seen as one of the major challenge that needed an additional skills and expertise in the world as international travels keep on rising, hence, routine like immunization against certain infections, consultation on patient education and get information on required itinerary when traveling. Pharmacist should be trained and retrained on other roles like vaccination, educating patients on medicine and general health to prevent possible hazards.
Hospital pharmacy services in the Pacific Island countries
Journal of evaluation in clinical practice, 2015
Non-communicable diseases have become an increasing problem in the Pacific Island countries (PICs). With the medical supply system often attached to hospitals in PICs, the training of hospital pharmacy staff has become increasingly important. This study aimed to explore hospital pharmacy services in the PICs using these validated surveys (BS26-27 and BS28-31 surveys) focusing upon hospital pharmacists' influence on prescribing and quality use of medicines. The BS26-27 and BS28-31 surveys were distributed online to pharmacy directors in hospitals in the PICs in 2011 and 2013, respectively. Surveys were made available in both English and French. In total, data from 55 hospitals were received (77% of the hospital sample in PICs) for either the BS26-27 or BS28-31 survey. From the responses received, 97% (36/37) of hospitals had a formulary, with 81% (26/32) of hospitals having a Pharmacy and Therapeutics (P&T) committee. Furthermore, 67% (24/36) of respondents stated that they provi...
Hospital Pharmacy Service: thinking in the post-pandemic time
2020
Angelita Cristine MELO1, Alice Ramos SILVA2,24, Mario Jorge SOBREIRA-DA-SILVA3, Renata Cristina NASCIMENTO4, Fernando FERNANDEZ-LLIMOS5, Antonio Matoso MENDES6, Catarina Luz OLIVEIRA7, Cesar Augusto TEIXEIRA8, Claudia Garcia OSORIO-DE-CASTRO9, Débora DE CARVALHO10, Eugenie Desirèe NERI11, Fabio FERRACINI12, Javier Álvarez CRIADO13, Lucila Isabel CASTRO-PASTRANA14, Luciane de Fátima CALDEIRA15, Pamela BERTOLDO16, Rodrigo ORELLANA17, Selma Rodrigues de CASTILHO18, Simone Dalla MAHMUD19, Teresa HERNÁNDEZ-GALINDO20, Valéria Santos BEZERRA21,25, Valdjane SALDANHA22, Vanusa Barbosa PINTO23, Elisangela da Costa LIMA24,25
Objective: To assess the structural and process components of the pharmaceutical care at Gondar University Referral Hospital (GURH). Materials and Methods: An institution‑based cross‑sectional study was conducted on all the four pharmacies at GURH from October 1 to December 31, 2013. By adopting data collection instruments from a previously done study, the structural aspects of the pharmacies were assessed using an observation checklist and the process of pharmaceutical care delivery using a self‑administered questionnaire. The data collected was entered to and analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.0. Results: none of the pharmacies had a private counseling room, fire extinguisher and meeting area. None of the pharmacy stores were equipped with fan and air ventilation system and had no cross aisles. The mean values for documentation, patient assessment and implementation of therapeutic objective were 12.14, 14.03 and 5.64 respectively. Many pharmacists (64.29%) did not participate in ward rotation with physicians. The overall pharmacy professionals' level of job satisfaction was found to be 2.77. Conclusion: There were gaps in the structure and the process of the provision of pharmaceutical care in GURH.
Implementing ward based clinical pharmacy services in an Ethiopian University Hospital
Pharmacy Practice (Internet), 2013
Background: Clinical pharmacy practice has developed internationally to expand the role of a pharmacist well beyond the traditional roles of compounding, dispensing and supplying drugs to roles more directly in caring for patients. Studies on the activities of the clinical pharmacist in an inpatient ward in resource constrained settings are scarce, however. Objective: To assess ward based clinical pharmacy services in an internal medicine ward of Jimma University Specialized Hospital. Methods: The study was carried out in the internal medicine ward from March to April, 2011 at Jimma University Specialized Hospital. The study design was a prospective observational study where pharmaceutical care services provided by clinical pharmacists for inpatients were documented over a period of two months. Interventions like optimization of rational drug use and physician acceptance of these recommendations were documented. Clinical significance of interventions was evaluated by an independent team (1 internist, 1 clinical pharmacologist) using a standardized method for categorizing drug related problems (DRPs). Results: A total of 149 drug related interventions conducted for 48 patients were documented; among which 133(89.3%) were clinical pharmacists initiated interventions and 16(10.7%) interventions were initiated by other health care professionals. The most frequent DRPs underlying interventions were unnecessary drug therapy, 36(24.2%); needs additional drug therapy, 34(22.8%) and noncompliance, 29(19.5%). The most frequent intervention type was change of dosage/instruction for use, 23(15.4%). Acceptance rate by physicians was 68.4%. Among the interventions that were rated as clinically significant, 46(48.9%) and 25(26.6%) had major and moderate clinical importance respectively. Conclusion: Involving trained clinical pharmacists in the healthcare team leads to clinically relevant and well accepted optimization of medicine use in a resource limited settings. This approach can likely *