The Munson Medical Center Pharmacy
Munson Medical Center’s Pharmacy strives to uphold the hospital's mission, which is to deliver comprehensive quality care to patients in partnership with all health care providers. Our vision is to provide the best combination of high quality, efficient, accessible health care while being highly valued by patients and their physicians.
The Six Values That Guide Us
- Patients: Our first priority
- People: Our greatest resource for achieving excellence
- Accountability: To those we serve and one another
- Respect: How we treat others
- Stewardship: To continue to meet our mission
- Compassion: The way we meet the needs of others
As a regional referral center and the largest hospital north of Grand Rapids, Munson Medical Center has a robust inpatient and outpatient pharmacy service. Forty inpatient staff pharmacists provide the services needed to care for patients in the 442-bed hospital.
The technician staff is comprised of about 50 highly-skilled individuals. Our pharmacy department model is a hybrid of both clinical and distributive roles. We believe the best clinical pharmacist has in-depth knowledge of drug distribution processes of the hospital, and the best distributive pharmacist understands the clinical considerations of the drug therapies they provide.
Inpatient services provide all aspects of drug preparation and distribution, including:
- Extemporaneous compounding, batching, packaging of bulk medications
- Filling and maintenance of automated drug cabinets
- IV medication compounding
- Medication order verification via physician order entry (POE)
Our team of inpatient pharmacists provides hands-on patient care in the following clinical areas:
- Antimicrobial stewardship
- Cardiology
- Cardiothoracic surgery
- Critical care
- Emergency medicine
- General medical units
- Neonatal intensive care
- Oncology
- Orthopedics
- Pain Management
- Pediatrics
- Stroke
- Surgery
Clinical responsibilities of our pharmacy staff includes guideline-driven drug therapy evaluation, medication reconciliation, renal and hepatic dosing adjustments, drug information questions, physician rounding, anticoagulation management, and individualized roles dependent upon the clinical area (example: dofetilide initiation, monitoring, and education by our cardiology clinical pharmacists). For more information about our extensive clinical services, contact the residency program director.
Inpatient Pharmacy Oversight
Oversight of inpatient services is provided by a director of pharmacy, clinical manager, operations coordinator, utilization management, safety officer, pharmacy educator, and six information technology pharmacists. In addition, the department has a technician manager, two full-time pharmacy buyers, one medication assistance program technician, and a department secretary.
Outpatient Pharmacy Services
Outpatient services include a dedicated discharge pharmacy located within the hospital, a medication assistance program, home infusion services, anticoagulation management clinic, hospice, heart failure clinic, and medication therapy management services provided by the Munson Community Health Center Pharmacy located inside Foster Family Community Health Center.
A Teaching Pharmacy
Munson Medical Center is a teaching site for the Ferris State University College of Pharmacy. Our program has the ability to provide fourth-year students with all of their required rotations without having to go off site. Currently, we receive five students from each class to participate in this year-long exposure to Munson Center and our clinical programs.
The PGY1 residency program is heavily invested in developing the resident’s preceptorship skills, as well as promoting the resident’s growth and development with didactic teaching and mentoring. The vast majority of our resident preceptors are also adjunct faculty for the College of Pharmacy. The combination of our strong clinical programs and our department’s culture of education is a statement of our commitment to developing highly-skilled clinicians to lead our profession into the future.