Pharmacy strives for 100 percent safety, satisfaction

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Chuck Broadway
  • 9th RW Public Affairs
BEALE AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., (ACCNS) --  As patients visit the doctor to find help for common illnesses or pains, a doctor may prescribe a medication to help treat the problem. Carrying the little slip of paper with "chicken-scratch" writing, that often lives up to the cliché of being illegible, customers walk up to the window at Beale's pharmacy and hand over the slip for the workers to fill. From there, the process is a mystery... 

What a customer may see as controlled chaos through the small frame of a pharmacy window is really the 9th Medical Support Squadron's pharmacy element working on its goal of 100 percent patient safety and satisfaction. 

"Great customer service and patient safety is most important to us," said Capt. Diep Nguyen, 9th MDSS chief of pharmacy services. 

The flight achieves its goal by paying close attention to every detail within the pharmacy. Two pharmacists and seven pharmacy technicians check several aspects of each prescription. Among workers who also serve at the pharmacy are civilian volunteers who help process prescriptions and greet patients at the window. 

"Technicians here sometimes act as pharmacists would in a civilian pharmacy by checking dosing, interactions with other medications and accuracy of the prescription," said Staff Sgt. Tiffany Romano, the 9th MDSS NCO in charge of the outpatient pharmacy. "Technicians can be the last people who see the medicine before the patient." 

Monthly checks of the medication's expiration date are made to keep medicine freshly stocked. No medication at Beale's pharmacy is less than three months from being out of date. 

"We go above and beyond every day to ensure safety; it's our job," said Maj. Neil Holder, 9th MDSS Diagnostics and Therapeutics Flight commander. "If we make one mistake, we may kill somebody so we have to be on top of everything." 

Long hours, a fast-paced, hectic environment and added levels of stress are variables the pharmacy deals with every day. 

The pharmacy handles approximately 400 prescriptions each day and close to 8,000 per month. According to Tech Sgt. Nick Gasper, the 9th MDSS NCO in charge of pharmacy services, that amount equates to a high-volume pharmacy in the civilian world. The pharmacy not only supports members of Team Beale but also retirees or other beneficiaries who may visit the area and need a prescription to be filled. 

With more than 20,000 beneficiaries coming to the pharmacy, a lot of lives are in the hands of the technicians and pharmacists, and sometimes pick-up window lines are long. To combat this problem, Beale's pharmacy has two alternate pick-up locations on base for customer convenience. 

Located in Bldg. 1086 and the Beale Base Exchange are two Automated Prescription Machines which are stocked daily. Patients can sign up and receive a pin number at the pharmacy, call in their prescriptions refills and pick them up at either location as long as the particular building is open. 

Amidst stocking the automated machines, helping patients at the window and spending extra time to ensure prescription accuracy, the pharmacy also has a unique medication that is their claim to fame. 

Due to the unique mission of Beale's U-2 high-altitude program in which pilots spend long hours in the cockpit, the pharmacy has created a special medication to help keep pilots alert. 

"We take a commercial ready medication, grind it up and turn it into a gel so it can be used at 70,000 feet," Sergeant Gasper said. 

This product, called Gel-Dex is a dextro-amphetamine which acts as a central nervous system stimulant. Beginning as 10 milligram tablets, they are crushed and turned into a gel substance which is placed into a syringe and tube. Pilots can then administer Gel-Dex to themselves through the feeding tube in their high-altitude, space suits. By taking the medication, pilots can maintain a higher state of alertness for a longer period of time.
Gel-Dex is only made in-house at Beale and sent to wherever U-2 pilots are flying. 

Because they are producing their own product as well as serving all beneficiaries, pharmacy technicians and pharmacists rely heavily on their training. 

"The Air Force has the best trained pharmacy technicians in the world," Major Holder said. 

The two pharmacists within the element are officers and registered pharmacists who attend from a specialized pharmacy school. They must graduate and pass a federal board before being sent to Commissioned Officer Training and placed into the field of work. 

Pharmacy technicians include enlisted servicemembers and civilians. Upon graduation from basic training, enlisted personnel attend technical training which includes a two week portion where the Airmen train at a medical treatment facility. 

The pharmacy's high level of customer service and attention to detail are products of their training; resulting in a high level of customer satisfaction.