Brooks Memorial Hospital

Pharmacy

The Pharmacy Department is fully computerized for patient medication profiling, and performs drug-drug interactions, food-drug interactions, dosage checking, and IV incompatibility checking. It is interfaced with other clinical departments within the facility, allowing current and complete patient evaluation. The pharmacists offer interactive clinical services including pharmacokinetic calculations for drug dosages, anticoagulation monitoring, and drug information distribution. The department utilizes a 24-hour unit-dose drug distribution service. Other drug distribution programs include an IV admixture service, which produces IV antibiotics, total parenteral nutrition products, patient-controlled analgesia products and other inpatient and outpatient IV infusion products.

 

The Pharmacy Department participates in educational programs for interested students, including mentoring high school students and offering internship rotations for university Pharmacy students.

 

 

LOCATION

First Floor

PHONE

General Information: 363-3090
Pharmacy Director: 363-3089

Director of Pharmacy Services

Sarah B. Nash, R Ph

HOURS

Weekdays: 7:00 am - 5:00 pm
Weekends: 8:00 am - 4:00 pm

 

Proper Disposal of Household Medication

Information from Pharmacy Director Sarah Nash, R. Ph.

 

The Brooks Memorial Hospital Pharmacy often gets calls from people in the community asking what they should do with prescription medications that are no longer needed. These are medications that may be expired or no longer needed by the patients. Sometimes it is a family member calling to ask what to do with medication left by a loved one who has passed away.

 

In the face of rising trends in prescription drug abuse, the Federal government has issued guidelines for the proper disposal of unused, unneeded, or expired prescription drugs. These guidelines are designed to reduce the diversion of prescription drugs and to protect the environment, and were issued jointly by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

 

If you have prescription drugs that need to be disposed of, you are urged to:

  • Take unused, unneeded, or expired prescription drugs out of their original containers

  • Mix the prescription drugs with an undesirable substance, like used coffee grounds or kitty litter, and put them in impermeable, non-descript containers, such as empty cans or sealable bags, further ensuring that the drugs are not diverted or accidentally ingested by children or pets

  • Throw these containers in the trash

  • Return unused, unneeded, or expired prescription drugs to pharmaceutical take-back locations that allow the public to bring unused drugs to a central location for safe disposal (Brooks Memorial Hospital is not one of these locations)

Over the counter and prescription medications should not be disposed down the drain because wastewater treatment facilities are not designed to remove pharmaceutical compounds and they may end up in your waterways, and may eventually be found in drinking water. Properly disposing of unwanted medications in the trash promotes a healthy aquatic environment and also prevents accidental poisoning and intentional abuse.