Filling a prescription isn’t something most people want to do right after a hospital stay, which is why Comanche County Memorial Hospital started offering Meds to Beds. Tara DeLonais, a Pharmacist at CCMH, said through the program, patients can get the prescriptions they’re going to need at home filled and delivered to their hospital bed before they get discharged.
“So they don’t need to wait for a prescription to be filled while they’re in pain or not feeling well,” DeLonais said. “They can have it right there before they go home. There’s no stop on their way home. There’s no going overnight without a necessary prescription.”
DeLonais said they fill it through Great Plains Pharmacy, which is located at the hospital. She said they’ll bill your insurance, but you’re still responsible for co-pay that you’d normally have. Not only do patients get the medicine delivered to their hospital bed, but pharmacists, like DeLonais, stop by to answer any questions that they have about their medicine. The hospital has around five pharmacists doing this.
“Usually two to three each day that will split up the patients that are discharging and go around and make sure that they have questions answered about any of their medications,” DeLonais said.
This ensures people are getting the medicine they need.
“We have patients come back through the ER that say they never filled that prescription because they weren’t feeling well or didn’t have the money or something else that could’ve been helped beforehand if had we known,” she said. “So it feels great to be able to know that I can go there, educate them and get them the prescriptions that they need right then and there and it’s one less thing that they have to worry about when they’re not feeling well.”
She said the patients she’s talked to like the program and can’t believe that something like this is offered.
“They do sometimes worry about ‘that’s not my regular pharmacy. What am I supposed to do from here?’ And still use your pharmacy after that initial fill. Your pharmacy can call and get that transferred over to your regular pharmacy and continue that way, but that initial fill is out of the way and you don’t need to wait and travel for that.”
CCMH plans on opening a retail pharmacy that will be 24/7 for patients and hospital employees. DeLonais said since there isn’t a 24/7 retail pharmacy in Lawton, some patients get released from the ER and have to wait until one opens to get the medicine they need.