Ward 85: The Internal Medicine Nephrology (IMN) Ward

[pharming_in_korea]

I’ve been participating in the patient care activities with the IMN team during these first two weeks. About 34 patients reside on the IMN ward at SNUH. There is a high turn over of patients on this ward because most patients can be managed on dialysis on an outpatient basis, once evaluations and surgeries have been performed.

Each day starts with an hour of pre-rounding by the IMN pharmacy team. This involves the patient-monitoring sheet projected to a screen and the newly admitted patient information is shared. Then the IMN pharmacist of the day joins the medical team for rounding at 9am.

The current arrangement of both the IMN and Hem/Onc teams is that pharmacists rotate each day to follow-up on the patients. Therefore the sharing of the patient-monitoring sheet with everyone is crucial to ensure understanding and proper follow-up. The reason for this arrangement is to share the time devoted to clinical responsibilities fairly among the pharmacists, as part of their graduate program. The pharmacists agree that it is difficult to mange all the patients on this rotating basis. From the perspective of patient safety, there must be extra precautions taken for this type of arrangement to ensure thorough transitions. Therefore, all pharmacists engage in the pre-rounding very actively and work together.

Throughout the day, the IMN pharmacist of the day participates in rounding with the medical team, doing medication reconciliation for new patients, and discharging patients. The pharmacist also provides drug information services. Patient education is a big part of the pharmacists’ duty.

-Tae