There’s a valuable new service available for a number of Sault Area Hospital patients.
SAH opened its accredited, retail iCcare Pharmacy to dispense medications for some of its cancer patients (as well as some of its renal and mental health program patients) with a soft launch Apr. 3.
“We gave the pharmacy a quiet start because we didn’t want to get overwhelmed to the point where we couldn’t provide a high level of service, we wanted to make sure our processes were working well,” said Michelle Nogalo, SAH pharmacy manager.
Currently, the pharmacy is staffed with one pharmacist from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, backed up by the current pool of SAH pharmacy technicians.
Does SAH see the pharmacy expanding as time goes by?
Not immediately, but later perhaps.
“It’s very important the community’s pharmacies should not see this as us encroaching on their territory. We’re really focused on three specific clinics…patients can’t get their renal meds anywhere else (for example), it’s really about convenience and safety for our patients,” Nogalo said.
“We’re not putting through 500 to 700 prescriptions a day like a busy pharmacy would. We’re really able to give our patients a very individual, personalized experience.”
“In order for us to have a full scope pharmacy where we offered a lot of different drug items it would take a much larger retail space, so we would have to renovate space, disrupt other departments and there would be a pretty significant capital renovation cost,” Nogalo said.
“Our real focus is on the oncology program…it’s new for us, it’s not our core business, we want to learn and gain experience in it (operating a retail pharmacy), then we’ll see where we go from there.”
SAH staff estimated there are currently about 150 patients (cancer, renal and mental health) being served through the SAH pharmacy.
The decision to open a pharmacy at SAH stems from a new, growing trend in delivering chemotherapy treatments to cancer patients.
“For a long time we’ve been interested in improving the quality of care we provide for our cancer patients and their oral chemotherapy (pills),” Nogalo said.
“Every year, more and more chemotherapy treatments are getting away from the intravenous route and going into an oral format. We estimate almost 50 per cent of chemotherapy treatments are being done orally.”
That trend has developed over the past five to 10 years, Nogalo said.
“It’s far more convenient for patients (to get oral meds at the new pharmacy) than for them to come here and get a chemotherapy infusion that could last four hours, some of them are very lengthy and complex infusions.”
It should be noted many cancer patients must still undergo chemotherapy at the hospital, depending on a patient’s particular medical circumstances.
Nogalo said SAH is taking great care to ensure oral chemotherapy patients are thoroughly informed and all their questions about their medications answered when they visit the pharmacy.
“It’s an inconceivably difficult time for patients so we hope this makes it a little simpler for them, but safe at the same time.”
“We monitor their liver function, how they’re tolerating their medications, we put all the pills in a compliance pack instead of just a pill bottle…there are all these different quality improvement ideas we had which we’ve implemented.”
“It’s convenient because it’s located here at the hospital but also there is a drug access navigator in the Algoma District Cancer Program (ADCP) who makes sure the patients medications are funded…some of these meds are very expensive, thousands of dollars per month, so we make sure we find a funding source for them, from their insurance, from the government, or the drug companies.”
Nogalo said SAH consulted on site pharmaceutical facilities at hospitals in Sudbury and London when putting its own new pharmacy together.
More information on the SAH iCcare Pharmacy is available by calling 705-256-3467 or by email at [email protected]