Through my years of being a pharmacist, I've heard of many policies and procedures that don't seem to make much sense. Either from being an asinine idea in and of itself, or because it requires attention from the pharmacist-only when it is a non-professional function.
I'd like to hear what policies and procedures really burn your butt. This is a chance to vent on things that make life in the pharmacy a little bit less pleasant. This is class-participation time.
If you desire, go ahead and name the company.
To protect your employment, comment anonymously.
Still hesitant, email it to me and I'll post it.
Please try to keep the language in check. If you use the really bad words, I won't allow your comments.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
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11 comments:
great idea...let me narrow it down to my favorite 150 LOL Kidding..and I'll shoot you an email.
Ok, my employer has a policy where we have to put all of the paper towels that we use to clean the trays and spatulas into a ziplock bag. Then we have to date the bag. And put it into a special trash can to be disposed of at the end of the month.
Mine has a policy of rph only reconstitution of meds. State says any lic tech or trainee can do this. Please! How hard is it to punch in the #of mls...verify the #. And hit dispense. It even pauses in the middle for shaking. Duh!!!
Hmmmmm....let's see, from previous places of employment:
1. Sent new uniforms (per updated P&P) to all employees, including aprons for pharmacy technicians. Aprons. Made as much sense as parkas in Miami.
2. All personal belongings beyond keys for your car had to be kept in your car. I am sure the insurance companies loved this one. No pharmacist I know of cared to follow this one, I mean, really? One guy was a diabetic....he had to leave insulin and food for a 12-hr shift in his car?
3. Company uniforms, again: Received size 14 Van Heusen shirt on my first day of work. I could have been pregnant with twins under that thing and had room to spare.
4. One really cool thing: The company that gave you a day off on your birthday.
Asinine rules?
No microwaves allowed in pharmacy.
No coffee maker allowed in pharmacy.
I recently had to make a policy in my pharmacy that everyone thinks is stupid, but I have my reasons. I made it a rule that only a pharmacist could re-shelf drugs from deleted rxs. The reason is that we have had several mis-fills because the returned bottle was put in the wrong place, the next rx that was filled for that drug used the wrong medication but the correct stock bottle was used for the purpose of scanning the bar code TO VERIFY THAT THE CORRECT PRODUCT WAS BEING DISPENSED!!! No one bothered to open both bottles to make sure that the pills looked the same, including the pharmacist that verified the product. Oh yeah, no counseling was done which would have caught the mistake.
My pharmacists grumble about this rule but I would rather hear that than deal with the alternative.
No drinks or snacks inside the pharmacy for techs or cashiers. If they want a drink, they have to use cone-shaped paper cups that are provided.
Pharmacists can still have whatever they want inside the pharmacy.
How about this one.... all empty bottles of Coumadin, warfarin, and phentermine must be put in a plastic bag before being disposed of in the hazardous waste trash.
Here's the kicker...an email came down several weeks ago that said Jantoven and Adipex bottles should NOT be bagged and put in the haz waste can. WTF???
The unlicensed AP (asset protection) staff performs random CII audits monthly.
Pharmacists are expected to spend 5minutes of each hour recruiting guests on the floor to use the pharmacy (and need to track these efforts!)
Pharmacy managesrs are expected to come into work the day after thanksgiving (even if it is a regularly scheduled day off) to perform as cashiers or cart attendants.
I have to defend the RPh-only reconstitution of drugs. One place had a tech only empty half the amount of drug into the powder, shake it up and it was dispensed doubly-concentrated. Technically a serious mistake like that should be on the back of the pharmacist, and the mistake not allowed to get on a pharmacist's record. Also, in one place, the unreconstituted powders were placed somewhere different than a wait to see the whites of their eyes, and the unmixed powder got away without the pharmacist being able to check the final product.
One place I worked, the CIV-IIs were in low locked drawers, and every single bottle was turned upside down, so that visiting pharmacists had to go through 5 drawers of upside down bottles to find, for example, the current flavor of Percocet.
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