June 15, 2009
Postal mail-out station at the Pharmacy.
The Meds are in the Mail...
by Michael Faubion, YKHC Public Relations
Village patients throughout the YK Delta will soon be receiving their medication refills by mail instead of having to go to the local clinic to pick them up.
YKHC's Pharmacy Dept, Village Operations, Technology and Materials Management have teamed up for "Direct to Patient"-an overhaul of the way medications are distributed.
"This project is a direct response to our customers' requests to improve on-time delivery of medication refills," said Health Services Vice President Jack Crow. "It has been a high priority coming out of our Tribal Gatherings for several years."
The current system, already phased out in the eight villages that took part in a trial run over the past year, involves shipping medication refills to village clinics aboard Bush planes where health aides must receive and process the shipments, then meet with patients to deliver the meds.
"It takes a lot of health aide time as well as patient and pharmacy staff time," said Pharmacy Director Melanie Gibson. "There are waits and delays, problems with patients not receiving medication on time, and medications being lost. With refills going through many hands, there is a greater likelihood for errors."
Wrong meds and missed appointments results in more staff time taken up with reprocessing returns and correcting problems-all of which drains operational funds.
Medication refill appointments account for 17,000 patient visits per year in the health clinics, taking up Health Aide time that could be used more effectively.
Concerns about changing the present system centered around the reliability of regional postal delivery. Meetings with the Post Office assured YKHC that postal delivery to most villages is direct from Bethel rather than routed through Anchorage. Refills could be delivered in 2-4 days in most cases.
The new system does require more patient involvement, however. Patients must call in their refill order 10 days before they run out to allow for the Pharmacy to process the order and for the Post Office to deliver it-plus a couple days to account for weekends, or unforseen delays.
YKHC's Pharmacy began the Direct to Patient pilot study a year ago with eight villages-Atmauthluak, Nunam Iqua, Akiak, Mekoryuk, Holy Cross, Stony River, Chuauthbaluk and Red Devil.
After analyizing the results of the study, it was determinied that implementing the system throughout the region would save about $10,000 a year on freight costs, although there would still be some hand-carries for those villages without direct Bethel-to-village mail service. The savings on Health Aide phone calls (est: 1,200 a day) and staff time (6,800 hours per year) would be substantial.
Implementing Direct to Patient over the coming year will require some remodeling in the Pharmacy area, additional staffing or retraining and technology improvements to streamline the workflow-all of which is underway at this time
"We've been hearing from our customers and tribal members for a long time that we need to do a better job with medication refills," said Patient Care Services Administrator Patty Smith. "Direct to Patient represents a positive change for better health care. Patients can work directly with pharmacy to ensure timely receipt of their medication and our providers and staff can be more confident that patients are getting the medications they need."
