In mid-September 2016, staff and equipment from the Regional Pharmacy Production Centre at St. Paul’s Hospital moved in to a new, modernized facility at Vancouver General Hospital, called the Vancouver Pharmacy Production Centre (VPPC).
The Lower Mainland Pharmacy Services (LMPS) operates a centralized Production Centre distribution system. This allows medications that are received from pharmaceutical manufacturers to be packaged in a centralized area, thereby leveraging capital equipment costs and operational expertise. Centralization also allows for standard and optimal production functions to create best practice models for drug distribution.
In order to enable closed loop medication management, the VPPC is expanding services to acute and residential care sites throughout VCH, PHC and some PHSA agencies, ensuring product quality and improved medication administration practices. A key requirement for closed loop medication management to work is that medications are supplied to the bedside as barcoded, pre-packaged, unit doses. These single unit doses will be verified through barcode scanning and administered directly to the patient or resident without additional preparation.
The expanded VPPC allows for the re-packaging and barcoding of medications, and will provide services to more sites than were served by the St Paul’s Production Centre.
