Today is World Hospital Pharmacy Day. Its role is crucial in the hospital environment.

Today is World Hospital Pharmacy Day, which is organized under the auspices of the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists. The aim of this initiative is to emphasize the importance of hospital pharmacies, to acquaint the public with the content of pharmacists’ work and the role of hospital pharmacy in the health care system. At FN Brno, hospital pharmacy has the task of providing care at the highest possible level and in an optimal range. At the same time, great emphasis is also placed on the involvement of pharmacists in multidisciplinary teams, because communication and cooperation are key for optimal therapy.

Pharmacists at FN Brno set the rules for handling medicinal products and their safe use. From the moment of their selection to the final delivery to the patient. “They are also involved in the hospital’s drug policy processes, act as guarantors of the safe handling of medicinal products, carry out the education of healthcare workers who handle medicinal products, and monitor compliance with applicable legislation and the organization’s internal regulations,” calculates the head of the Hospital Pharmacy, PharmDr. Šárka Kozáková, MBA, with the fact that the main goal is appropriate, effective and safe pharmacotherapy.

Personal contact between the pharmacist and the patient is an irreplaceable element of pharmaceutical care at the FN Brno. “Personal contact makes it possible to strengthen the patient’s motivation to use the prescribed treatment, the pharmacist can thus actively participate in prevention, or recommend the patient to see a doctor if his health condition requires it,” explains Kozáková. Pharmacies are the most easily accessible healthcare facility for patients, they are often the first point of contact for the patient with the healthcare system. Therefore, it is important to provide patients with the necessary information, whether it is the dispensing minimum when dispensing a prescription drug or professional information related to dispensing without a medical prescription.

“Hospital pharmacists are also involved in clinically focused multidisciplinary groups, they are an integral part of teams performing clinical drug evaluations. The pharmacist is also a member of the nutrition team, where, in cooperation with doctors, they try to create a strategy for providing the hospital with suitable enteral and parenteral nutrition. Some of them also work as clinical pharmacists with the aim of optimizing and ensuring the safety of pharmacotherapy for hospitalized patients and high-risk patients in the Clinical Pharmacy Outpatient Clinic,” adds Šárka Kozáková. Pharmacists are in daily contact with doctors and non-medical health workers and provide a complete clinical-pharmaceutical service that enables individual treatment settings for a specific patient.

Pharmaceutical assistants are also an integral part of the team. Those in the hospital pharmacy of the Brno National University of Medicine work in all sections, for example in the dispensaries, in the laboratories for the preparation of demanding pharmaceutical forms or in the medical equipment section.

“Hospital pharmacists and pharmaceutical assistants are experts who help and advise doctors and other hospital workers, sick and healthy people. Therefore, they must have not only specialist knowledge, but also the ability to listen and have a bit of empathy in them,” Kozáková concludes, adding that the Brno FN Hospital sees an increase in spending on prescriptions, vouchers and requisitions every year, the preparation of individually prepared medicinal products and the preparation of cytotoxic drugs, including targeted therapy.

You can reserve a prescription in one of the pharmacies of the FN Brno or ask a question at https://www.fnbrno.cz/polozit-dotaz-rezervace-receptu/t7311. More information about the newly established Clinical Pharmacy Ambulance is published at https://www.fnbrno.cz/ambulance-klinicke-farmacie/t7810.

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