Services
Pharmaceutical Care
Acute Care / Hospital Services
Mercy-North Iowa's inpatient pharmacy is centrally located in the facility and provides 24-hour service to the health center. It serves the entire health center with a complete unit dose medication system and IV admixtures. The pharmacy generates daily medication records for all inpatients and also provides emergency medication acquisition.
The inpatient pharmacy plays a role on the Mercy health care team that ensures continuous quality of care. Our clinical pharmacists round with physicians to assist in providing the best medication therapy available. Pharmacy participation on the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, Pharmacy and Nursing Liaison Committee and the Continuous Quality Improvement Team allows communication between all health care professionals involved in patient care. The pharmaceutical care team is also involved in developing and managing the drug formulary along with other health care providers. Mercy pharmacists are involved in providing medication in-services to make our staff more knowledgeable about the drug therapy they are dispensing to the patient. By working together as a team, the Mercy health care staff is able to provide quality drug therapy and education to our patients.
In the acute care setting, our hospital staff is trained to provide the best pharmaceutical care in relation to the inpatient's medication therapy. The Mercy pharmacists are able to provide drug information that pertains to patients on an individual basis. Through computer order entry, the pharmacist is able to identify any contraindications to therapy such as a drug allergy, drug-drug interaction, drug-food interaction, drug-disease interaction or adverse drug reaction. Specific patient information can be accessed to individualize intravenous therapy, total parenteral nutrition, antibiotic dosing and monitor medication therapy as a patient's condition changes.
As a pharmaceutical care team, our goal is to provide each patient with optimal medication therapy. By working together with other health care professionals, a continuum of care exists which helps ensure that our patients will receive prompt, effective, professional and quality medical care.