Clinical Pharmacist - Inpatient Medicine

Department Overview

The purpose of this position is to provide the services of a licensed pharmacist which includes the responsibility for the safe and proper distribution and use of medications in inpatients and outpatients who range in age from neonates, infants less than one year of age, children and adolescents ages 10-18, adults ages 19-65 and the elderly over age 65.

 

This position is to function at higher decision making and accountability levels regarding medication therapy, proactively affecting medication use by making recommendations at the time prescribing decisions are being made or, in some cases, making independent decisions about medication therapy in cooperation with other healthcare team members. Additional services provided include facilitatation of medication reconciliation, discharge counseling, and medication delivery through coordination of care from admission to discharge. The

pharmacist must possess strong communication skills for patient education and work collaboratively with inpatient and outpatient interdisciplinary teams including but not limited to providers, nurses, case workers,

pharmacists, and technicians, as well as, the teaching and precepting component of students, interns and/or

residents.

 

This is a flexible model where the coordination during transitions of care and medication use system for patients are integrated with traditionally centralized functions, such as order entry/verifications and will continue to evolve as part of integrated decentralized patient care practice.

Function/Duties of Position

• Identifies, resolves and documents complex therapeutic problems, demonstrating advanced knowledge and application of this knowledge to a specific patient population.

• Interprets and evaluates physician's orders and prescriptions for accuracy, completeness and appropriateness. Documents activities of clinical decision or medication distribution issues that are not in line with the standard of practice, require follow-up, or continued monitoring/evaluation. Verify the accuracy and appropriateness of medications prepared and dispensed from the central pharmacy.

• Monitors therapeutic response and adverse effects of medications to guide drug therapy. Consults with provider when questions or problems are identified and documents activies in the patient medical record. Appropriately reports all adverse drug reactions, drug defects, and medication errors. 

• Responds accurately to requests for drug information from physicians, nurses, patients and patient's families; independently reviews and interprets the literature and applies this information to specific patient care situations.

• Supervise the activities and assume responsibility for all duties being performed by technicians, students, interns, and residents and monitors and evaluates their performance.

• Influences standards of therapy by forming peer level relationships with attending medical staff members; is recognized as a drug authority in their practice area by physicians, nurses and pharmacists.

• Assists in the development of treatment guidelines to be used in patients with specific diagnosis. Documents activities in the patient medical record, pharmacy monitoring profile, drug use evaluation data collection or adverse drug reaction reporting program. 

• Assists in the reconciliation of medications, education of patients regarding their home medication regimens, and coordination of the discharge medication plan with the interdisciplinary team. Documents activities in the patient

  medical record.

Required Qualifications

Education:

• A current Pharmacist’s license issued by the Oregon State Board of Pharmacy.
• BS in Pharmacy or Pharm.D. PLUS Practice Residency/Equivalent Experience or Specialist Certification (BCPS, BCOPS, etc)

Experience:

• Inpatient hospital pharmacy practice: Ability to meet the pharmaceutical care needs of the following patient care types: Acute care, psychiatric, rehabilitiaion, skilled nursing, long-term care, obstetric, oncology, chemically dependent, HIV, home care, hospice.

Job Related Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (Competencies):

• Demonstrates the ability to: Enforce pharmaceutical care principles safely and accurately
• Make age-related modification of drug therapy
• Make disease-related modification of drug therapy
• Evaluate medical literature Work independently without minimal direct supervision
• Handle multiple tasks and frequent interruptions
• Communicate effectively both formally and infomrally, including presentations
• Project manage Work with a team professionally and collaboratively
• Set pr