How many of you attend the monthly meeting of P and T committee as a valued member?

Do you think that Pharmacy Inventory managers would be a valuable asset at these meetings?

Name of Facility: VA CT Healthcare

City, State: Federal Hospital

Years as a Buyer: 7.5

When I was still in hospital, I was the Recording Secretary for the P&T Committee. That basically meant I was the one to take the minutes of the meeting and prepare them for the next, as well as prepare the Adverse Drug Reaction Report and the Drug Incident Report.

I was also the one to gather distributive information about Formulary Addition Requests. I would have to provide the company info, cost, availability, packaging, and sometimes, what drug it could replace on the Formulary.

It wasn't a fun job until I figured out a way to take down the minutes in a kind of shorthand on my laptop. It made typing up the minutes so much easier. The Chairman of the committe loved to put me on the spot by asking me questions on the current state of the drug in Europe, because he was one to read the European journals.

As it turned out, he was the only doctor to come to my going away party. Guess I was doing something right.

Name of Facility: Summerdale Enterprises, Inc.

City, State: Publishing

Years as a Buyer: 30+

I do not go to the P & T meetings. I do prepare a listing of Hard to Procure Meds for each month. Our Clinical Pharmacist is the person that coordinates with me on the issues and information needed and he is great about communicating what is needed. It is also discussed at our staff meetings. For me this would be just another meeting and since we have excellent communication in the department, it is ok with me not to go to this meeting.

Name of Facility: St. Francis health Center

City, State: Acute

Years as a Buyer: 4+ in Pharmacy 25 in retail hard goods

I have been the posting secretary of our P&T Committee for over 10 years. I prepare the packets with our Clinical RPh (we share an office) and we develop the Formulary portion of the agenda together. I am not a "valued" member as you state, which urks my Clinical RPh. She feels I add value to the committee and should be recognized on the agenda, etc... That will be the day.

Name of Facility: Arnot Ogden Medical Center

City, State: Acute Care 256 beds

Years as a Buyer: 7

My CFO wanted me to attend to offer a financial perspective (mostly because some high dollar savings were being poorly communicated by the pharmacy representatives and the physicians didn't understand how large the savings would be) but it was "shot down" by the Director of Pharmacy and Clinical Coordinator.

As of now, CFO would still like me to attend but so far it hasn't happened.

City, State: Teaching hospital

Years as a Buyer: 2

That's interesting, Coleen. Usually the Pharmacist representative on the P&T Committee is alone, surrounded by Doctors and Nurses. You would think, as mine and other Directors feel, that he/she would want all the allies they can get in that room, especially if you have the backing of the CFO. Even in the most cordial of committee groups, it always seems to come down to 'us vs them' when it comes to justifying Pharmacy activity to the higher ups.
Just off the top of my head, you would be the authority the committee would refer to when there's questions on supply, shortages and prices, which should be invaluable when debating new drugs. No one on that committee would have your grasp of knowledge in these areas.

Oh, I made a small boo-boo in what I did on the committee. I didn't report on the Incident Reports. It was the Intervention Reports.

Name of Facility: Summerdale Enterprises, Inc.

City, State: Publishing

Years as a Buyer: 30+

We have a very small P&T committee after having none for quite a while because we couldn't get the MDs to show up.

So now our P&T committee is 2 RPh and 2 MDs (2 of our hospitalists) and they meet quarterly over lunch. Sometimes the P&T Chairman (our Rx Clinical Coordinator) will consult a different MD is the drug is in their scope of practice and there are lingering questions.

City, State: Teaching hospital

Years as a Buyer: 2

It is so interesting to hear all the different ways hospitals do things. Our P & T meets every month and our Clinical Coordinator chairs the committee and our Director goes to the meetings as well. Depending on the topics, other Pharmacists with particular knowledge also attend. Our clinical Pharmacist and Director confer with me on the topics that have something to do with supply, demand and other buyer functions. We have excellent communication between the Clinical Coordinator Pharmacist, Director of Pharmacy and the Pharmacy Manager and this helps a lot.

Name of Facility: St. Francis health Center

City, State: Acute

Years as a Buyer: 4+ in Pharmacy 25 in retail hard goods

I think my knowledge of shortages, new generics coming out, costs, etc. would be a real asset to the P & T meetings, but I never have been included.

Our committee meets monthly with 2 clinical pharmacists, dept. director and dept. manager attending, as well as many doctors.

I hear about additions/deletions from the formulary after the fact. Occasionally, I am asked to checking costs for a new drug or one that we want to autosub.

Our communication here is ridiculous. Anytime I notice that a drug has been mfg out for 3-4 days, I let the clinical pharmacist know sO we can have some options available to the doctors. His usual response is to shrug and walk away from me. Good thing I have a healthy ego!!

Name of Facility: PORTER

Years as a Buyer: 9+

Hi Ruth,

What you say here is exactly how i feel. I think we all in our positions would be a valuable asset to utilize at P and T.

Wish one day we get recongized for all the good things and great knowledge we have, i am sure by that time i might have great great grandchildren??

Name of Facility: VA CT Healthcare

City, State: Federal Hospital

Years as a Buyer: 7.5

Oh Jeri
Do not be disheartened. It could happen sooner than you think.

Like Kathy, I prepare the Hard to find list for my supervisor. The clinicals are constantly doing clinical analysis for medications they want to add and remove from the formulary. The resident and intern pharmacists help prepare the presentation--so I am key in supplying the nessary and relevant information. I am happy that I have not been asked to attend the P & T meetings.

This is a very interesting discussion. I remember when I was Pharmacy Contract Administrator for a large national pharmacy purchasing group. We had 43 members of our Advisory Committee, one from every shareholder system that was part of the large buying group. At one time, 41 members were Pharmacy Director type positions and 2 members were actually Pharmacy Buyers. Whenever supply issues came up, the buyers would be asked about current supply problems, as the pharmacists were so many years out of line responsibility for procurement that they knew how supply problems may have been 10 years ago, but tended to not have current knowledge. The Pharmacy Buyers were an invaluable resource for that Advisory Committee.

Name of Facility: Editor-In-Chief, Pharmacy Purchasing Outlook

City, State: Newsletter

I had the opportunity last week to attend our P and T, now called Medication Management Committee. Our Drug Info Pharmd., brought up switching from Cefoxitin IV preop to Cefotan preop, because she was alerted by our National Committee, that Cefotan was readily available. I asked the question, did someone here actually check the availability , and the answer was no. So when someone did actually check , Cefotan is available, but definitely not at the quantities we would want to start converting back to using it as our first choice for pre op. This is now on hold.

Just this one thing leads me to believe that we in our positions do have valuable information that could be utilized better? I am not looking for more work, believe me, but just the example above shows no one has all the correct answers.

Name of Facility: VA CT Healthcare

City, State: Federal Hospital

Years as a Buyer: 7.5