Key Terms
a medication order written by a physician on admission of a patient to the hospital; may or may not include a medication order
What is Admitting Order?
a list of approved medications for use within the hospital; this list is approved by the P&T Committee
What is drug formulary?
a patient’s medications brought from home to continue use while in hospital
What are Home Medications?
an independent governing body that sets standards for quality patient care and safety in hospitals and other healthcare facilities; this organization is responsible for the accreditation of hospitals
What is The Joint Commission?
a committee of the hospital that reviews, approves, and revises the hospital’s formulary of drugs and maintains the drug use policies of the hospital
What is Pharmacy and Therapeutics (P&T) Committee?
mobile and secured cart that houses the automated medication dispensing system for floor stock on each nursing unit
What is automated medication dispensing system (AMDS)?
computerized health information record to share patient information among authorized healthcare providers to better coordinate health care
What is Electronic Health Record (EHR)?
a committee of the hospital that ensures that appropriate protection is provided to patients using investigational drugs; sometimes referred to as the Human Use Committee
What is Institutional Review Board (IRB)?
a hard copy or digital legal document that contains the clinical information that a hospital collects in-house and consists of patient identifying demographics, hospital room number, physician notes, problem list, medication orders and list, nursing assessments, and discharge
What is medical chart?
an area of the inpatient pharmacy that houses frequently prescribed formulary drugs in commercially available unit dose packaging, thus allowing efficient medication cart filling by more than one technician
What is pick station?
a daily printout of all patient profiles
What is Cart fill list?
an online record that documents the administration time of each drug to each patient by a nurse using barcode technology
What is eMAR?
documentation by the nurse upon admission to the hospital
What is intake record?
a prescription written in the hospital setting
What is medication order?
an online or written, step-by-step set of instructions for pharmacists and technicians alike on all operations within the pharmacy department
What is policy and procedures manual?
also known as the Pharmacist in Charge (PIC) the chief executive officer of the hospital pharmacy department
What is Director of Pharmacy?
medications stocked in a secured area at each nursing patient care station or floor
What is floor stock?
a centralized pharmacy service that prepares IV, TPN, and hazardous preparations in a sterile, cleanroom work environment
What is IV admixture service?
a drug not included on the hospital’s drug formulary
What is nonformulary drug?
a system of procedures, activities, feedback, and oversight that ensures that operational and quality standards are consistently met
What is Quality Assurance (QA)?
an order written by a physician that provides take-home instructions, including prescribed medications and doses, for a discharged patient
What is discharge order?
a speciality pharmacy set up particularly to serve home healthcare dispensing
What is home infusion pharmacy?
a drug used in clinical trials that has not yet been approved by the FDA for use in the general population, or a drug used for non-approved indications
What is investigational drug?
the minimum restock and maximum reorder levels for each drug on each nursing unit
What is par levels?
a medication order that is to be filled and sent to the patient care unit immediately
What is STAT order?