For someone who has gone to school to achieve their title of being a pharmacist, there are a number of different job locations that are an option for a career. In addition to an independent pharmacy or a pharmacy chain, there is the option of long-term care facilities, or nursing homes. These different types of facilities serve people differently and provide them with a variety of services. The best medication services will go a long way towards a person’s quality of life and health status.
Working in Nursing Home Pharmacies
Working within a nursing home location typically requires the maintenance of medication for patients anywhere in the vicinity of 300 people to 1,000 people. Typically, patients in these facilities will be on some sort of medication, if not multiple varieties. A nursing home pharmacy will usually utilize a head pharmacist, 5 to 7 other pharmacists and then utilize the nurses on staff for the administration of medicines.
The process of fulfilling the needs in nursing home pharmacies includes duties like checking new orders, managing refills, ordering medications, the input of prescriptions into a centralized database and etc. This type of position will differ from a pharmacy in that there are no patients coming in and out to purchase their medications. The workflow is controlled in a different way. Pharmacists know everything that the patients are taking, versus people coming in off the street who don’t have to disclose what they’re using.
Some professionals miss the interaction that they experience with patients when they are no longer in a location that has customers coming in and out. However, this is a great opportunity to work with a population that is in need of proper medication management. The job can be very rewarding overall, and this is a job that an entry level pharmacist can learn a lot from.
