What Is a Long-Term Care Pharmacy?

Long Term Care Pharmacy Versus Retail Pharmacy
A long-term care pharmacy services residents in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and under long-term care in a residential (at-home) setting. They are typically not open to the public, nor do they offer a variety of non-prescription items for sale, unlike their retail counterparts.

Myrtle Drugs is a long-term care pharmacy for our neighbors, family, and friends in Myrtle Creek. Our Myrtle Creek pharmacists are here to help ensure that patients in long-term care facilities and at home receive their medications on time and that they are cost-effective.

Call Myrtle Creek’s pharmacists and techs at Myrtle Drugs to learn more about how we can help you with long-term care prescription needs.

What Is the Function of Long-Term Care Pharmacies?

The function of long-term care pharmacies is to ensure that patients under long-term care receive efficient and affordable solutions to their pharmaceutical needs. Facilities utilize these pharmacies to make filling prescriptions easier for patients so that they don’t ever have to worry about the delivery and availability of their necessary medications.

Long term pharmacies work directly with long term care facilities and homes, providing several services including:

Taking part in clinical and consultative services
Providing technological resources
Improving patient-facility-pharmacy connections
Reducing patient waste

All long-term care pharmacies are highly legally and practically regulated to ensure that all detailed matters with packaging and labeling are controlled, reducing potential medication errors. Although all pharmacies are regulated and monitored, these special pharmacies must be extra careful, as many long-term care patients are on multiple medications indefinitely.

Why Are Long-Term Care Pharmacies Important?

Long-term care pharmacies are an integral part of long-term patient care; they make obtaining medications cost-effective, efficient, and streamlined when compared to retail pharmacies.

They also play specific roles in keeping the patients safe, which involves:

Aiding in avoiding adverse medical reactions
Minimizing re-hospitalizations
Reducing prescription complications
Improving clinical results

What does this mean for patients?

A long-term care pharmacy can help patients with status monitoring, drug regimen reviews, nutritional support, and medication packaging options. Their direct involvement reduces stress and workload on the long-term facility staff.

Unlike retail pharmacies, long-term care pharmacies inherently are more attuned to the needs of their typical patients. Long-term care facilities using retail pharmacies often must send one of their employees to physically pick up each patient’s medication. The problem with this is the sheer volume of medication needed by a full facility or nursing home’s population. Long-term care pharmacies are better stocked to provide the variety of medication required, in the volumes requested, without fear of running out between deliveries.

Myrtle Drugs: Your Long-Term Care Pharmacy Solution

The needs of long-term care patients must be met with precision, efficiency, and great care. At Myrtle Drugs, we take pride in caring for our elders and those in long-term care. We know that these patients, in facilities or at home, have prescription needs that can be complicated. Trust our team to provide comprehensive pharmaceutical solutions for your residents, regardless of the volume. We can handle the needs of your facility in Myrtle Creek, Oregon.

Contact the Myrtle Creek pharmacists at Myrtle Drugs to discuss what we can do for your long-term care facility or nursing home. We are here for you.