Pharmacy
Pharmacy to expand services, location
New service can fill patient and staff prescriptions on site
Dana-Farber patients and staff will soon be able to have drug prescriptions filled directly at the Institute and have the costs billed to third-party insurance carriers.
A new pharmacy and waiting area are set to open Jan. 7 on Dana L1, near the cafeteria, as part of a major expansion of DFCI's pharmacy services. The pharmacy will stock take-home medications prescribed for DFCI patients, as well as most common prescription drugs for staff. In the past, the pharmacy has been able to fill prescriptions only for patients without insurance or those covered by Medicare. Employee prescriptions were filled at cost.
"For patients and families who often had to stop at their local pharmacy before heading home after a day in the clinic, the new service can be a significant timesaver," says Vice President of Pharmacy Services Sylvia Bartel, RPh, MPH. "If the local pharmacy doesn't carry a particular medication which isn't unusual for some of the newer cancer agents — patients may have to wait a day or two before starting treatment. The on-site pharmacy will stock medications ordered by Dana-Farber physicians."
When the new service starts, adult and pediatric patients who receive prescriptions during visits to the Institute can have them forwarded to the pharmacy and pick up the medicine before leaving, or have it mailed directly to their home. To ensure the fastest turnaround time for patients, Dana-Farber staff who wish to have their personal prescriptions filled should drop them off early in the workday and pick them up after 2 p.m. (Staff can also ask their doctors to phone in prescriptions.)
The decision to start accepting third-party insurance came in response to patient and staff requests, Bartel says. As the number of patient visits at Dana-Farber has grown, nearly doubling in the past six years, it became clear that an in-house pharmacy could provide a benefit to patients and an additional revenue stream for the Institute.
The new system has safety advantages for patients, says Jason St. Amour, RPh, manager of the Dana L1 pharmacy. "DFCI pharmacists will have online access to patients' medical records, doctors' notes, and up-to-date laboratory results — information that generally isn't available to retail pharmacists. Also, some of the newer medications have complicated dosing schedules, which local pharmacists might not be familiar with. Here, pharmacists can review dosing directions with patients and answer their questions ahead of time."
More volume, more space
With the opening of the new operation on Dana L1, the physical "footprint" of the outpatient pharmacy will increase sevenfold, says Bartel. The additional space for pharmaceutical storage, preparation, administration, and offices will accommodate what is expected to be a jump in the number of prescriptions filled — from an average of 35 a day now to about 300 a day next year. To handle the increased volume, the department has hired nine new staff members, all with retail pharmacy experience, and assigned some pharmacists responsibility to dispense research prescriptions.
As part of the expansion, the department is dividing itself into two parts: an outpatient research pharmacy, for new drugs that have not yet received FDA approval but are being tested in clinical trials, and a retail pharmacy. The separation is a behind-the-scenes-only arrangement, involving pharmacists who are assigned to one area or the other, and won't be apparent to pharmacy users, Bartel states.
Both Patient and Family Advisory councils played an active role in the creation of the new service, providing input on such items as the design of the prescription labels. Months of work went into upgrading the department's computer system to handle insurance billing, payment issues, and processing of patient co-pays, says St. Amour. An outside vendor provides the system for routing bills to the appropriate insurers.
"The expansion is part of our effort to provide the best service possible to patients and their families," says St. Amour, "and we urge staff to take advantage of the convenience of on-site prescription-filling as well."
The pharmacy on Dana L1 will be open from 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. weekdays beginning Jan. 7. Staff with questions can contact St. Amour at (617) 632-3204.
– Robert Levy
robert_levy@dfci.harvard.edu
