Pharmacy Policy: Emergency Room Prescriptions

What are emergency room prescriptions?

Emergency room prescriptions are part of the pharmacy policy and procedures.

As usual with most of the policies sample posted here, there is some default data that should be listed in the policy header and footer. Below are some of the info that you need to include in your emergency room prescriptions header:

• Hospital name, obviously.
• Pharmacy department operational policy and procedure, this header just to notify the reader that the following policy belongs to which department.
• Policy code or Number, for filing/indexing purposes.
• Edition Number, same purpose as above.
• The title of the policy, in our case; would be Emergency room prescriptions.
• Important dates [date reviewed, approved date, effective date, and due for review date].
• Applies to [department] in this case it should be pharmacy department
• And last but not least, you’ll mention the nature of the policy, whether it’s going to be multidisciplinary or department-specific. (Multidisciplinary)

Emergency room prescriptions Policy

Definitions

This policy describes the process of prescribing all medication by physicians from the emergency room.

Purpose

To specify the period and requirements of dispensing medications to all patients treated at the emergency room.

Policy

1. All emergency room prescriptions should follow the standard prescription criteria and will be dispensed from the following pharmacies as follow:

• Outpatient pharmacy: 0800-2100 Hrs.

(Saturday-Thursday)

• Inpatient pharmacy: 2100-0800

(Saturday-Thursday)

(24 hours on Friday and during Holidays).

2. All medications prescribed from ER will be dispensed to the patient for specified period of time as indicated in the procedure.
3. Unit dose system will be used for dispensing medications.
4. Repackaging policy should be followed for all unit dose medications.
5. All ER physicians should adhere to the ER restricted medication list.

Procedures and responsibilities

1. Emergency room prescriptions will be dispensed from the above stated pharmacies licensed pharmacist.
2. Physicians should follow the standard prescription criteria.
3. The ER Physician & Pharmacist shall adhere to the following durations of treatment:

• A maximum of 5-7 days’ supply will be dispensed for Antibiotics.
• A maximum of 5 days’ supply will dispense for chronic diseases medications.
• A maximum of 3 days’ supply will be dispensed for acute diseases medications.

4. Licensed Pharmacist should screen the prescription for medication history, any Drug-Drug interactions, therapeutic Duplication and allergies. And follow the standard criteria for dispensing.

Attachments

Attachment A- ER Restricted medications list.

---

You’re almost done and the pharmacy emergency room prescriptions policy is almost ready, what’s remaining is just a few basic policy layout filling.

• References.
• Revisions: Revised as per timescale.
• Distribution: Here you should mention where this policy will be sent, and which departments will get a notification for it:
  • Medical/Hospital Director.
  • Emergency Services.
  • Pharmay Department.
  • Signed Originals are maintained in Manual & Indexing Office.

The policy is now finished, and it’s time to get proper signatures, whether your hospital is implementing electronic signatures, or manual signs and stamps.

---

Image by freepik