Health system views pharmacist as vital to coordinated care

Abstract

For more than a year, a rural health system in central Minnesota has been offering select patients a medical home, complete with a pharmacist. Lakewood Health System, with its main campus just east of 4.5-square-mile Staples, started its patient-centered medical home in early 2008. Hospital-based clinical pharmacist Julie Moriak has been providing ambulatory care pharmacy services to Lakewood’s medical home patients from the start. The medical home operates out of the Staples Clinic, on the middle floor of the large building at the health system’s main campus, Moriak said. On the top floor is the 25-bed critical-access hospital, and on the basement, or lowest, floor are the ancillary service departments. In addition to the 25 medical beds, the health system has 10 licensed behavioral health beds and 100 licensed beds for skilled nursing or long-term care. Medical home patients taking 10 or more medications have sort of an unwritten referral, thanks to the physician in charge, to see the team pharmacist at a mutually convenient time, Moriak said.