Robots Are Coming

We are getting "robots" at work. At least they are called robots but they are self contained inside

a big box. They are suppose to label the vial, put the med in, and screw the lid on. 

Our military members have been putting in some very long hours keeping refills up to the minute in fear of losing them into the neverlands when the new system is brought online. That's what happened when we had a software update last year. Hundreds of refills were lost.

The way our pharmacy works is we have six windows where the pharmacy techs take care of 

patients individually. Every two windows has one Accumed cabinet and is set up with shelves that contain other "fast movers". The pharmacists have two stations with two seats/computers at each station.

Here are some before pictures.

  

These are some pictures of the "take down" in progress. They started with one Accumed cabinet at the beginning of last week, then took out half of the two center counters.

 

 

Time for the big "reveal".

Only our floors still need cleaning and

some organizing in the pods still

needs to be done, but that'll come later.

Today, Jan. 21st was our first experience using the

"Parata Max" and so far so good.

  

 Views inside the box. 

 

Working With Clowns

 Some people think we are a bunch of clowns...........

I work in a pharmacy and I've been in an outpatient pharmacy for the last four years.

I never realized how much people misunderstand the terms brand name and generic.

Even before I became a technician six years ago, I always compared over

the counter (otc) medications to see what was actually in them. Benadryl (an antihistamine)

is diphenhydramine which is also found in Tylenol PM and other otc sleep aids.

Get it?

Synthroid is levothyroxine, Synthroid is the brand, levothyroxine is the generic name for Synthroid. Levoxyl, Levothroid, Unithroid, Tirosint are also brand names of levothyroxine.

Get it?

So when we tell someone we don't have that medication, that means we don't have the

brand or the generic for that brand.(We work with a formulary for outside scripts.)

Get it?

Also when it comes to birth control...when the script says "substitutions allowed" that does not mean we can pick any birth control. It has to be a perfect match chemically. There are so many combinations of female hormones in them and then the

percentages of each hormone can differ widely.

Get it?

There's one other pet peeve about working in a pharmacy, how can a patient with TEN prescriptions expect their's to be typed, scanned, filled, and checked in the same amount of time of ONE prescription for another patient?? and then there's the patient with ONE prescription who wants to know why his is taking so long, well someone in

front of you brought in THIRTEEN!!!

Get it?

Even though there are many problem patients,

we have many pleasant happy patients who greatly

appreciate our service and for those we are so

happy to go that extra mile !

That's a lot of boxes!

Climb that mountain Soldier!

Finally, breakfast.

Stick my tongue at you.

Ummm, what next?

What's going on now?

I'm the normal one.

Well maybe not!

Some people think we clown around too much!

Who says.....

.....you can't fart at work.

Especially those SBD's (silent but deadly's) something I've mastered well. I try to make it to the back of the pharmacy but by the time I get there it's already a done deal. The other day something smelled really bad, very "the man" worthy, I thought it was the patient but when I moved away it went with me, I had no idea there was such a thing as Ninja SBD's !

.....you can't learn new things after a certain age.

This year I decided it was time to learn to ride a motorcycle. I've earned the endorsement on my license and since the man works on motorcycles I have my own bike. I'm still just riding around the neighborhood but that didn't keep me from running into a four foot deep ditch with two feet of water. Ditch water is nasty and very itchy, I couldn't get into the shower fast enough. I highly recommend staying out of ditchwater. 

......you can text and drive.

I can't, even voice to text has risks. What I do enjoy is checking email, weather, coupons, whatever at red lights. Sometimes I miss the light turning green but another driver will kindly remind me with a honk of their horn.