The virtual pharmacy located in the clinic is stocked with drugs targeted to most of the conditions, according to Mark Walton, Chief of Pharmacy. That's less expensive than sending patients to a retail pharmacy, and more convenient than sending them to our central pharmacy. It also means that in many, if not most, cases, patients have the opportunity to talk directly with a pharmacist about how the meds will affect treatment. Once a doctor diagnoses a condition, we can consult on the best course of treatment. That's what we're trained for.
Pharmacists are the drug experts, but often get caught up in extraneous activities.
Our focus should be the patient, and technology can help us by enabling us to work more directly with our veterans and by handling many time-consuming activities. One of the advantages that Widmer likes about the POC dispensers is it give him the ability to easily customize the formulary to the specialty of the clinic. The Medical Center has a psychological and well women's centers, for example, and when POC systems are installed, they will contain the medicines appropriate for each center. Veterans who use the clinic used to have to drive to the Bay Pines pharmacy to fill their prescriptions, a roundtrip of 80 miles. Now they get them before they leave.