It is always so encouraging to me to read these postings and know that I'm not alone!!! There are many universal problems that we all struggle with and I, at least, sometimes forget that most of you are dealing with the same things I am. I think we should get together and compile a book--we could all retire and hand our headaches to somebody else nutty enough to do our job!

We are supposed to have a closed formulary, too--what a joke .

RPhs are just to apathetic to call docs who order non-formulary drugs (they might get yelled at and damge their fragile little egos!)to tell them we don't have the drug they ordered. We have 2 great local drugstores here in town that we have reciprocal agreements with. They borrow from us and we from them.

Second action is to tell the MD/RN to get the family to bring non-formulary drugs from home. We do have to verify what it is, but it is less hassle doing that than ordering things that we'll use 1 of and let the rest outdate on the shelf. These always seem to be for the Medicare/Medicaid/self pay patients and we have little of recovering any charges.

Have a great week-end and enjoy the conference, all you lucky folks who get to attend. I'll make it there some year!

Ruth

Name of Facility: PORTER

City, State: acute care

Years as a Buyer: 9

An 80/20 report shows the 20% of the top drugs with the 80% of your money.

It is hard but wholesalers like Cardinal have the tool built in.
I run the report at 80% and use their MIN/MAX utility to establish an order frequency. Min/Max allows me to assign Min/Max settings to selected items.
I have been able to reduce the inventory by a considerable amount.

I kind of divide the list into 3 parts. The first one is "A" which is where most of my money is spent. The second one is "B" which consists of meds that one that I try to order on a weekly basis. And the last one is "C" which consists of meds that I look to order on a need-to-order basis or a monthly order.

This system was taught to me by a dear friend and allows me to optimize my inventory effectively.

We currently have a team of clinical pharmacists who round with our attending and resident physicians and influence them to use medication on the formulary.

Name of Facility: Kern Medical Center

City, State: Teaching hospital Trauma II center

Years as a Buyer: 4