Pharmacist, Main Pharmacy at Aga Khan University Hospital

Introduction

Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi is a private not-for-profit teaching hospital that provides tertiary and secondary level healthcare services. It is the first hospital in East Africa to be accredited by the Joint Commission International from the USA. The University Hospital has been providing high quality care for the people of East Africa and beyond for over 60 years.

The incumbent will provide quality and efficient pharmaceutical services that are efficacious, safe, and cost effective that meets or exceeds the expectation of the patient and their relatives.

Responsibilities:

Dispensing to in and outpatients

• Verify prescription authenticity and validity.
• Review written prescriptions for indication, dose, strength route, form, duration, drug interactions and ensure that drugs are dispensed in proper manner.
• Verify expiry dates of drugs prior to dispensing to prevent anomalies in service delivery.
• Prepare, compound and dispense drugs and other pharmaceutical supplies.
• Provide patient counselling on usage of medication and devices.
• Maintain prescription record, for proper maintenance of records, and retrieval.
• Compute and record prescription charges.

Participation in ward pharmacy services and specialized clinics

• Perform a thorough clinical check on all treatment sheets and discharge prescriptions.
• Identify, resolve, and prevent potential and actual drug-related problems and review patient profiles for drug interactions, allergies, contraindications and adverse drug reactions to determine and implement optimal drug therapy.
• Communicate directly with physicians, nurses, and other health care providers to relate information regarding patient drug therapy.
• Communicate and document drug information given to health care providers, patients and/or patient representatives.
• Provide patient counselling on medicines, devices, and adherence to therapy.

Inventory Management

• Ensure proper inventory management of drugs and supplies, and their storage and handling and updating of the inventory records on a regular basis, to ensure product conformity.
•  Monitor drug consumption and prepare reports regarding drug usage in the hospital and utilize reports to determine levels to be set on IT System.
• Daily receiving of ROR and timely storage.
• Carry out random stock takes and expiry monitoring.
• Monitoring of adhoc drug requests, out of stock drugs and non-stock drug orders.
• Ensure strict control over usage of controlled drugs such as narcotics, for compliance with policy on dangerous drugs, and avoid misuse.
• Facilitate Nursing Floor Inspections Monthly and Satellite Inspections Daily.
• Daily monitoring and managing of drug expiries.

 Quality and Patient Safety

• Adhering to mandatory Pharmacy Policies & Processes.
• Maintain accurate documentation of all interventions and recommendations regarding drug therapy and rational use of drugs and their outcomes.
• Provide drug and poison information to medical personnel on availability and usage of drugs, drug to drug interactions and adverse effects of these drugs, and appropriately document the same.
• Monitoring and recording of adverse drug reactions, medication errors and near miss.
• Ensure operational and quality indicator audits daily, weekly and/or monthly.
• Provide training to other healthcare professionals e.g. nurses.

 Continuous Professional Development

• Attend and participate in departmental CMEs.
• Assist in training other staff to enable professional growth of the department.
• Assist in training of pharmacy interns and students.
• Perform any other duties as may be assigned by the supervisor or their designee.

Requirements:

• Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy.
• Registration with Pharmacy & Poisons Board
• Valid Annual Practicing License
• At least 2 years of working experience, preferably in a hospital setting.
• Must have ability to interpret drug order.
• Must be able to keep up with Continuous Professional Developments as well as Continuous Medical Education program.
• Must demonstrate supervisory skills and ability to work in a multicultural environment.
• Must have remarkable ability to follow through on tasks assigned.
• Must have sound knowledge of teaching and methods involved in learning and instruction.
• Must possess excellent computer/ data entry skills.
• Must possess excellent interpersonal and communication skills with sound ability to manage the time of self and others.