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Pharmacy Services
The Litzenberg Memorial County Hospital pharmacy staff consists of Reg Hain, R.P., Director of Pharmacy; Ron Schafer, R.P., Clinical Pharmacist; Bonnie Lewis, Pharmacy Technician; Kala Wengler, Pharmacy Technician and Tammy Gray, Pharmacy Technician.
Litzenberg Hospital hired its first fulltime pharmacist in 1988 with the responsibility of setting up an entire pharmacy department. In that time period, pharmacy services have gone from a consultant-type service with minimal weekly visits by the pharmacist to a department consisting of two full-time pharmacists and three full-time technicians.
In 1988, the current Med Room was the pharmacy, and held the entire stock of medications used in the facility. Patient medications were administered by the nurses from bottles stored in this area, and all IVs were mixed by the nursing staff. Today the pharmacy provides Unit-Dose, IV Admixtures, Oncology, Kinetics, Outpatient/ER and a variety of clinical services for the hospital and medical staff. Pharmacists' services are available 24 hours/7 days a week for the facility and medical staff. And, in the last year, the pharmacy computerized the Acute Care services and installed Pyxis units throughout the facility.
The Pharmacy Department also provides pharmacy services for approximately 80 nursing home and assisted living beds. We provide medications to the residents in a 14-day OPUS system. We also provide all the consultant services for Long Term Care and Merrick Manor.
Pharmacists in the health system are medication use experts who ensure that patients receive the right dose of the right medication, respond well to their medications and counsel patients on the correct way to use their medications. A pharmacist reviews all medications ordered by the physician or physician assistant to make sure that the serious, urgent and complex medication needs of the hospitalized patient are met.
Pharmacists in the health system provide needed information on medication to the nursing and medical staff. Pharmacy is responsible for the development of medication-use policies, procedures and protocol that provide the nursing and medical staff with direction in how medications need to be prescribed and administered.
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