In the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals and departments throughout Hartford HealthCare have been stepping up in a big way to get the system through such a difficult time. The work hasn’t gone unnoticed.
The pharmacy, one of the departments that’s often out of sight, is helping lead the way.
“It’s like a duck on a pond right now from a medication perspective,” says David Girouard, director of pharmacy for The Hospital of Central Connecticut and MidState Medical Center. “Nobody’s really talking about it, but we are paddling real hard under the surface.”
The pharmacies began ramping up their surge supply in the beginning of March. That meant ordering medication that would be critical for the treatment COVID-19 patients. Sedatives were needed for those intubated and hooked up to respirators. So were drugs that help control blood pressure and antibiotics, which some doctors are using as a form of treatment.
“From the pharmacists to the directors to the whole system of pharmacy, I mean, without us you don’t have the medicine,” said Tammy Wierzbicki, pharmacy buyer at The Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain.
She says the past several weeks have been the most strenuous because critical medications are either on backorder or being allocated to hospitals. That means staff is working well into the night to make sure they have medication needed so the medical staff can treat patients accordingly.
“We are actually using the same skill set that we’ve honed over the past few years in dealing with shortages,” said Girouard.
It’s an all-hands-on-deck approach. According to Girouard, the pharmacists are streamlining the dosage of medication to help decrease the number of times a nurse has to access a patient. Technicians are preparing emergency cart supplies and intravenous medications. The buyers are keeping in close contact with medication distributors so they can continue to build a stockpile.
“I think there will be hardships,” aid Wierzbicki, “but I am hoping as a system that we can all come together, help each other out and hopefully get through it.”
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