Charge Pharmacist Procedures for Inpatient Pharmacy

Rev 6.10.2015
These procedures apply to employees of the INPATIENT pharmacy only.
* Sick/Late Call Procedure:
- Inpatient staff and clinical pharmacists will call 415-206-4892 and ask for the
designated Inpatient Charge Pharmacist (Charge) for sick/late calls.
o All others (Outpatient staff, Purchasing staff, QA, PAP, IT staff) will page
the On-Call Supervisor (OCS).
- The time on the inpatient pharmacy computers will be the official clocks.
- Late calls: As per departmental policy, employees are expected to be ready
to work at the beginning of their shift. Employees who anticipate being more
than 7 minutes late for the start of the shift or return from a meal break must
contact the Charge pharmacist. Staff is expected to call the area Charge
before the beginning of their shift.
o If staff is expected to be >1 hr late, Charge will need to determine if
other coverage is required.
o Staff must check in with Charge upon arrival.
o Charge will record applicable information on Sharepoint form.
- Sick calls: staff is expected to call the area Charge at least 2 hours before the
beginning of their shift. The exception is night shift - who needs to call 4
hours prior to beginning of shift.
o Charge will determine if shift needs to be replaced (Clinicals on service
do not need to be replaced).
o If replacement needed, Charge will call Asereth (1-800-273-7384)
and/or Nor-Cal (415-459-5211) to request coverage. For NorCal, mark
the message Urgent. Note that staff may need to be reassigned
(including 2450, 2454 and 2409) to cover shifts that registry staff are
not typically trained on (e.g if a chemo shift needs to be replaced, a
staff may need to be moved from their 7UD assignment to chemo, then
a replacement can be requested from the registries to cover the 7UD
shift). Typically, registry staff is not trained to cover chemo, IVAC, CS,
or 8B.
o Call both registries (between hours of 6AM and 11PM) to request
coverage. Once a replacement is confirmed, notify the other registry
to cancel the request.
o If there is no coverage from the registries available, Charge will page
OCS, who will then arrange for coverage. The OCS may ask Charge to
help with this process.
o Record information on Sharepoint form.
- If the pharmacist designated as Charge is sick, they must page the OCS. The
OCS will reassign the Charge duties.
* Borrow/Loan approvals:
- Charge pharmacist determines if borrow is required. If the item is normally
stocked in the pharmacy, Charge can approve borrow. Purchasing staff will
continue to help with procurement during business hours. Charge records
information on Sharepoint form.
- Charge approves loans if it is deemed that there is enough stock for SFGH
usage and the item is not on the SFGH Drug Shortage list. If the item is on
the Critical Drug List, the Charge should consult the OCS before approving
the loan. Charge records information on Sharepoint form.
* Hand off any pertinent information to the next Charge pharmacist

* Sign off on registry staffs timesheets

* Sharepoint site: https://dphweb/sfgh/pharmacy/SitePages/Home.aspx
(Login and password the same as your Active Directory login and
password)