Navy Medicine West Support Spans the Pacific

BREMERTON, Wash. (NNS) -- From one naval hospital to another, help was just an ocean crossing away to ensure continuity of service involving pharmacy services.

U.S. Naval Hospital (USNH) Okinawa retired the colors during a decommissioning ceremony on Camp Lester March 26.

The new pharmacy, located on Camp Foster, went live March 16 at the replacement facility, USNH Okinawa located on Camp Foster.

Naval Hospital Bremerton's Hospital Corpsman Chief Lourdes Angevine had already invested several weeks into helping completely relocate and open the entire Pharmacy.

"I just transferred from USNH Okinawa to NHB five months ago. During my entire tour there, I was a member of the transition committee representing the Pharmacy. I was involved in the planning of equipment and furniture set up as well as the transfer of pharmaceuticals/supplies to the new pharmacy," said Angevine, NHB Pharmacy Leading Chief Petty Officer, explaining how she was tapped to help in handling the relocation of the hospital's pharmaceutical supplies.

Angevine brought her 18-plus years of pharmacy operations experience as well as Navy chief organizational skill in helping to ready the new and shut down the old.

"I provided input on medications set up, work flow and patient flow. These are very important factors in the smooth operation of a pharmacy," Angevine said, who was also stationed at the USNH Okinawa Pharmacy 1998-2001.

Along with her leadership role, Angevine helped stock approximately 1,700 pharmaceutical line items, trained junior technicians in the operation of the robotic dispensing system and made sure all the varied equipment was working and in place to service the first customer.

Angevine noted that over the course of the initial five days of the move, the Pharmacy team was putting in 12 to 13 hours a day to ensure that they were prepared to provide for patients on the sixth day.

"We worked 12 straight days because there were so many medications to sort and put on the shelves. Plus, we had to clean the old pharmacy as well," relayed Angevine, adding that the most difficult part of the evolution was making sure every medication listed in stock was accurate and all labels are printed for the shelves.

"If there were any missing labels as we came across any medications, we had to shift everything to correct, and you are talking about thousands of bottles of medications," said Angevine.

Angevine's professional Navy Pharmacy knowledge combined with her personal experience from being stationed at USNH Okinawa team made her a perfect fit to contribute to the smooth transition in assisting the Pharmacy team in meeting the operational timeline.

"I had not done anything like this before. I am grateful to USNH Okinawa and NHB for giving me the opportunity to be a part of the actual transition. I was involved in the planning stage and to be able to come back and actually see and help with the new place was great. It was fun being reunited with my Sailors and the whole pharmacy staff. The most gratifying part was when we were able to serve customers on the day we were scheduled to open, even as we handled some minor technical problems. We knew that we were up and running," Angevine said.

As enjoyable as her time was, it was a temporary assigned duty (TAD) work load that required a lot of dedicated hours to finish the job requirements on time.

"I would tell anybody who's going on any similar duty to expect a lot of work. They also have a plan if they are not familiar with the place they are going to work at, and need to bring a lot of patience and experience," stressed Angevine.

The work for Angevine and the Pharmacy staff continued on after all the medications were thoroughly stocked and patient orders were filled. There was the requisite administrative work to keep updated. There were spaces that needed to be cleaned for the pending safety inspection with the new Pharmacy became operational.

"And that's just the beginning. The entire hospital crew worked very hard moving all their equipment to get settled and they were still able to deliver high quality care. Teamwork was outstanding! The Sailors were full of energy and excitement. All of the Pharmacy staff were excited and showed ownership in their new pharmacy," Angevine said.

NHB and USNH Okinawa are both part of Navy Medicine West (NMW). NMW ensures operational readiness and force health protection overseeing command and control of 10 Military Treatment Facilities (MTFs) accredited by the Joint Commission and two Dental Treatment Facilities within the Pacific region while providing guidance for healthcare delivery; closely monitoring individual readiness and contingency response capability; ensuring efficient and effective utilization of funding and personnel resources; encouraging system optimization and innovation and assessing future strategies. NMW is staffed by 16,900 active, reserve and civilian professionals who provide outstanding health services to more than 776,000 patients.


For more information, visit www.navy.mil, www.facebook.com/usnavy, or www.twitter.com/usnavy.>
For more news from Naval Hospital Bremerton, visit www.navy.mil/local/nhb/.