Pharmaconomists in hospital pharmacy
- 1Clinical Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacy, Sygehusapotek Fyn, Odense, Denmark
- 2Department of Pharmacy, Hospitalsapoteket Viborg, Viborg, Denmark
- Correspondence to Dr Thomas Croft Buck, Clinical Pharmacy, Sygehusapotek Fyn, Odense DK-5000, Denmark; thomas.croft.buck{at}ouh.regionsyddanmark.dk
- Received 12 September 2012
- Revised 3 October 2012
- Accepted 10 October 2012
- Published Online First 3 November 2012
Pharmaconomists have a 3-year education in the technical and theoretical skills related to the pharmaceutical profession. About 700 pharmaconomists are employed in Danish hospital pharmacies. This is about half of all hospital pharmacy employees.
In the mid 1990s a new phenomenon, ‘medicinservice’, was introduced in some wards. In the beginning it was mainly about taking care of the medicine stock on the ward, ensuring the necessary stock is available and ordering supplies. Medicinservice was primarily provided by pharmaconomists who visited the ward on a daily or weekly basis. In the 1990s this service was a rather groundbreaking activity—until then the pharmaconomists and other hospital pharmacy employees had only few independent tasks on the wards.
As a supplement to this logistic service the medicinservice pharmaconomists started answering drug-related questions and gradually became a valuable resource on the ward. If a question is outside the pharmaconomist's competence, they present it to a pharmacist.
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