ESSAY: Interview a Pharmacist

The purpose of this assignment is to interview a pharmacist to learn more about interprofessional collaboration between prescribers and pharmacists. If possible, volunteer to shadow the pharmacist. Discuss the following in your interview:

The process of filling a prescription.

Common reasons pharmacists call providers to clarify orders.

What is on a proper prescription.

Common omissions on prescriptions they receive.

Medication errors pharmacists encounter.

The prior authorization (par) process and common par medications.

Please interview a registered pharmacist, not a pharmacy student. If you interview a pharmacy student, you will be required to repeat the assignment and lose a letter grade.

Please interview a community-based pharmacist who deals with the issues you will be writing up in your paper; hospital-based pharmacists in many cases will not be able to answer insurance questions or the PAR questions.

Write a 500-1,000 word paper summarizing your experience and what you learned from the pharmacist you interviewed. Reflect on how this information will help your prescription writing. Discuss intercollaboration between pharmacists and prescribers.
You are required to cite three to five sources related to intercollaboration to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years and appropriate for the assignment criteria and nursing content.

ANSWER

Experience and knowledge from the Interview

The interview with the pharmacist was a great learning experience that helped in the acquisition of more knowledge about prescription. For instance, the meeting provided a platform to adequately understand the process of filling a prescription, which entails the following. First, the pharmacist inquires if the patient has visited the pharmacy before, and searches for the patient’s prescription history if he is not new to the pharmacy. If it is the first time, the patient is instructed to fill a consent form to allow the pharmacist into filling the prescription. Second, the pharmacist enters the prescription into the patient’s profile and checks the dose and information from the doctor (Brinker Jr, MacGeorge & Hackman, 2019). The pharmacist checks for possible drug interactions before continuing with the process. Step three involves …

 In step four, a clinical check is performed on the medication, which involves assessment for allergies, interactions and to confirm that it is the most effective medication. The pharmacist also performs a technical check to verify the accuracy of the recorded data. Counseling documents are also printed to equip the patient with more information about the drug (Kalra, 2016). The final step includes picking up the medication by the patient and receiving counseling from the pharmacist. In the case of a refill, the stage will consist of assessment to…

I was also able to learn about why pharmacists call care providers for order clarification. They may need to clarify the dose and name of the prescription to minimize errors. They can also call in case of therapy duplication and when filling prescriptions that demand to be monitored from a care provider. The experience also equipped me with knowledge about what should be included on a proper prescription. It should have the prescriber’s, patient information, date of prescription, inscription, refill data, permitted substitutions and the doctor signature. The pharmacist also enlightened me about the common omissions on prescription they encounter, which makes the filling process challenging. For in…

Impacts of the Acquired Information on my Prescription Writing

The data will be a significant improvement to my expertise in prescription writing. Learning about the whole process of filling a prescription will help enable inclusion of all the required data to make a pharmacist’s work easy. Information about what pharmacists call providers gives knowledge of the common questions inquired and allows integration of the right feedback to avoid calls after writing a prescription. Learning about what should be included on a proper prescription creates a platform to involve all the necessary patient data to prevent mistakes and filling errors that can result in devastating impacts on the patient. Identification of a problem is always the first step towards devising solution. Therefore, learning about the common medication errors encountered by pharmacists as a result of inadequate prescriptions enables assessment and corrections to provide the pharmacists with a well-documented prescription. Prescription writing is considered one of the most critical steps of the patient care process. The stage determines the highest percentage of failure or success of the patient care process. Therefore, making the level efficient…

Intercollaboration between Pharmacists and Prescribers

Collaboration, teamwork, and effective communication between healthcare professionals are essential to promote safety and effectiveness in healthcare delivery. Healthcare research by the world health organization has led to the findings that a significant percentage of admissions and readmissions in hospitals are as a result of adverse drug effects, interactions and medication errors as the patient goes through transfer of care. Since pharmacists have rich knowledge about drugs, their benefits, and possible harms, they play a vital role in collaboration…

The central role of community pharmacists is always to provide primary care to the population. The partnership between pharmacists and general practitioners is therefore essential in improving the overall wellbeing of the community. Authorized collaborations between care providers and pharmacists allow pharmacists to provide healthcare services in the scope of the health practice in which they are in partnership. A hospital-based pharmacist in collaboration with physicians can order lab work to make follow-ups, calculate doses and modify dosage according to findings from the lab. The partnership therefore equips pharmacists with power to make use of their professional judgment and determine appropriate treatment goals, which allows them to plan and administer care to patients (Grezard et al., 2018). However, pharmacists in the collaboration cannot be allowed to make medical decisions in all situations. Healthcare providers may demand that pharmacists…