Busy Day

When I went in to the pharmacy on Wednesday, I was asked to shred some old prescription labels. I realized that prescription labels have important information about the patient such as their address and what medication they are taking. Therefore, in order to protect the patient’s privacy, it is important to properly dispose of such documents so that others do not get a hold of the information. After I was done shredding the old labels, I began to fill the new prescriptions. It was a really busy day; the other pharmacy technician kept receiving new orders and printing the prescriptions, and I was constantly filling one prescription after the other. I noticed that there was one particular medication that I was constantly filling and that medication was metformin, which is a drug that is used to control type II diabetes. This made me realize that diabetes is a really prevalent disorder and that this medication is very important to help patients control their blood sugar and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Importance of Maintenance Drugs

This past Wednesday at the San Jose Pharmacy, I was again asked to help with the PAP (Prescription Assistant Program) re-orders. I walked into the pharmacy and the pharmacist handed me a packet, which had a list of all the patients who were eligible to have their medications re-ordered.  All the patients on the list were separated according to their physicians, so I logged onto the computer system and began placing the re-orders. As I was going through the list, I noticed that a lot of the prescriptions that I was re-ordering were prescriptions such as Lisinopril or Accupril, which are used to treat high blood pressure. I realized how important these prescriptions are because they work as maintenance drugs for these patients and allow them to maintain a healthy living. Therefore, it is crucial for these patients to have these medications on a daily basis. It is very important for everyone working in the pharmacy to make sure that when these patients run out of their medications, we have already re-ordered it for them so they do not have to go without their medicine.

Ordering Prescriptions

Since the pharmacy was not as busy as it usually is on Wednesdays, the pharmacist asked me to re-order prescriptions for patients through the Prescription Assistant Program. As I mentioned before, the Prescription Assistant Program is a program that provides medications to those patients who cannot afford to buy their own. Through this program, the San Jose Clinic receives most of its medications for free. The pharmacist showed me how to log on to the computer system and how to place the orders. The pharmacist then gave me a list of patients who had prescriptions that needed to be re-ordered, so I searched for them in the system under their physician’s name. I also made sure that I was ordering the correct medication of the correct strength before I placed the order. I got to experience what it is like working behind the scenes in a pharmacy and getting a feel of what all goes into getting a prescription dispensed to a patient. Again, everyone’s roles are important in keeping the work flow of the pharmacy in order.

Realizing the Responsibility

Since I am more familiar with the workflow of the pharmacy at San Jose, I went straight to filling prescriptions when I arrived at the clinic this past Wednesday. As the labels were being printed, I would locate the proper medication bottle from the inventory making sure the medication bottle I was getting matched the medication on the label. This is a crucial step in preventing dispensing errors and making sure the patient gets the right medicine of the right strength, otherwise, there can be serious consequences to the patient’s health. After I made sure I grabbed the correct bottle, I proceeded to count the pills and fill the prescription orders. I also placed the labels on the bottles. After every prescription I filled, the pharmacist double checked my work, again to make sure that the correct medication is going to be dispensed. This made me realize the great responsibility that rests on the shoulders of everyone who works in the pharmacy because we have to make sure everyone gets their proper medicine.