Mission: To provide Veteran-centric pharmaceutical care that improves outcomes through a commitment to innovation, education, and collaboration.
VAPORHCS pharmacists serve as valuable members of patient care teams in the acute care, ambulatory care, and long-term care settings. Our department features a decentralized pharmacy service with barcode medication administration, IV admixture service, automated dispensing systems, electronic healthcare record, and automated prescription filling.
Our acute care clinical pharmacists provide care to patients on the medical and surgical units, intensive care unit, step-down units, acute psychiatry unit, operating room, and ambulatory surgery. Responsibilities include providing drug therapy and dosing recommendations, participating in team rounds, pain management consultation, anticoagulation management, pharmacokinetic dosing, medication reconciliation, and discharge patient education. Specialized clinical pharmacy care is provided in the following areas: Critical Care, Infectious Diseases, Oncology, Palliative Care, Psychiatry, Transplant, and Operative Care.
Our outpatient clinical pharmacists provide a wide range of pharmaceutica
...l services to our Veterans in both Portland and Vancouver locations. Our clinical pharmacy specialists in the ambulatory care section support the Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACTs) in our Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) and several specialty services including: Anticoagulation, Hepatitis C, Mental Health, Cardiology, Oncology and Pain management. Additionally, Ambulatory Care Pharmacists perform thorough medication reconciliation, address drug information questions, consult with physicians and PACTs, provide medication counseling, and participate in evidence-based medication review on Drug Utilizations Teams. Pharmacists working in these areas can initiate and modify therapy for selected disease states under a scope of practice with a supervising provider and act as midlevel practitioners.
Our management team practices the philosophy of servant leadership and is trained in quality improvements utilizing the LEAN methodology. In addition, our Pharmacy Benefits Management (PBM) team continues to maintain consistency with the VA National Formulary and the Veterans Integrated Services Network (VISN 20) formulary, involving dedicated program managers skilled in pharmacoeconomics and health system administration. Our health system is continually in the process of updating and refining our capability to use computers as tools to assist in meeting the health care needs of our Veterans. Therefore, our pharmacy administration team includes a pharmacist dedicated to implementing and staying current with computerized information system changes at the local, regional, and national levels. This informatics pharmacist also assists residents with data extraction for year-long research projects and medication use evaluations, both required as longitudinal assignments during the residency year.
Throughout the health system, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians have a strong voice in process improvement and quality assurance of pharmacy services. Pharmacists and technicians lead or serve on several committees including Patient Safety, Medical Service Council, Pharmacy and Therapeutics, Institutional Review Board, Research and Development, Order Menu Workgroup, Education, Antimicrobial Stewardship, Northwest Pain Committee, Clinical Pharmacy Practice Councils and many others dedicated to improving patient care.
Show more
Show less
