Pharmacy

Driscoll Children’s Hospital’s pharmacy provides inpatient and outpatient services to the main campus in Corpus Christi 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The pharmacy also provides services for all outlying Driscoll clinics. The department is composed of approximately 40 employees including technicians, centralized and decentralized pharmacists, pharmacy interns and students, information technology specialists and administrative personnel.

Services

Centralized services include:

• Chemotherapy preparation
• Drug order review and verification
• Inpatient medication distribution
• Investigational drug services
• IV admixture preparation
• Medication relabeling for home use
• Outpatient medication processing and counseling*
• Total parenteral nutrition preparation
• Unit dosing/prepacking

*Outpatient services - The pharmacy provides limited outpatient services for Driscoll patients only. Outpatient services are not available to Driscoll employees or to the public. These services are limited to patients with financial needs that must be approved by a financial advisor. If your child has been approved to have their prescriptions filled, you will receive an approval form from the financial advisor. Please bring this approval form with you and provide this to the pharmacy staff.

Decentralized services include:

• Discharge counseling
• Drug information
• Drug-drug and drug-food interaction monitoring
• Drug order review and verification
• Interdisciplinary patient care rounding
• Medication reconciliation
• Medication therapy recommendations
• Pharmacist to dose Lovenox
• Pharmacokinetic and therapeutic drug monitoring
• Renal drug monitoring
• Various medication wean protocols

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the pharmacy located?

The pharmacy is located on the 1^st floor of the hospital next to the Admitting Department. You can always ask one of the security guards to help you find us.

What is the difference between a centralized and decentralized pharmacist?

This is determined by where the pharmacist is located and where they work. A centralized pharmacist works most of his/her day in the main pharmacy whereas a decentralized pharmacist works most of his/her day on a specific unit. Decentralized pharmacists can be found in the PICU, NICU, 4^th Tower, 6^th Tower and 7^th Tower.

What is the difference between a formulary medication and non-formulary medication?

Formulary medications are those medications that have been approved by a hospital committee to be used for our patients. These are typically medications that are most commonly used in our hospital. Non-formulary medications are those medications that have not been approved for use in our hospital.

My child is being discharged today and the doctor wrote some prescriptions. I have been informed that I can fill these prescriptions at the Driscoll pharmacy. What do I do now?

Before you drop off your prescriptions at the pharmacy, you must visit a financial advisor. Financial advisors are located in the Admitting Department. This person will be able to determine your financial need and will give you an approval form if the need exists. Bring the form, along with your child’s prescriptions, to the pharmacy. The pharmacy will then be able to fill all the formulary medications on the prescription for you. If there are any non-formulary medications, the pharmacist will talk with your doctor to determine if there is an alternative formulary medication that can be prescribed.