Family Medicine

 Goodbye PICU, hello Family Medicine! After working with the pediatric population for 3 weeks, I’m looking forward to a change in scenery and working with the adult population, who I've had more experience working with.

The inpatient pharmacy is located on the 10^th floor in the new NTU Hospital Building and provides all of the medications for patients that are hospitalized, which is approximately 2000 beds per day. The pharmacy consists of 45 pharmacists, 3 technicians, and 9 laborers and part-time pharmacists. The hours of operation are from 8 AM to 10 PM on weekdays and from 8 AM to 5 PM on weekends and holidays. Similar to the pharmacists in the pediatrics hospital, pharmacists here are also responsible for the cart-filling, dispensing, and verifying of medications. They are also available on different clinical services to help optimize medication therapy through dosage adjustments, therapeutic drug monitoring, adverse drug reporting, etc.

In terms of how the medication is dispensed, the inpatient pharmacy also uses unit-dose packaging. All oral drugs are given in either foils or individually packaged plastic wraps. For drugs that come in bottles, an automated machine is available to package the drugs. Unfortunately, because the inpatient pharmacy in understaffed, they are unable to provide IV admixture. Because of this, parenteral drugs are dispensed in its original form and are taken up to the floors once a day.

Clinical Services Provided by the Inpatient Pharmacy          

Family Medicine: 1 pharmacist who attended morning report and gives a presentation to the medical team once a month            

ICU service, cardiac, and general surgical wards: 2 pharmacists         

Infectious Disease: Pharmacist in charge of the infection ward on a weekly basis; receives consults from Dr. Shu Wen Lin (who received her Pharm. D from the US)　 

Hematology: 1 pharmacist

OR Pharmacy: 2 pharmacists                                                

Anticoagulation Clinic: 1 inpatient pharmacist that works with the outpatient pharmacy

        For the next 3 weeks I will be working with the Family Medicine pharmacist where we will attend morning meetings everyday and do case reports with the chief pharmacist every week. Every Tuesdays I will also attend a geriatrics interdisciplinary meeting. More to come later! 

The Directory of the New Building at NTUH. The Inpatient Pharmacy is on the 10th Floor

Medication carts in the inpatient pharmacy