BRAINERD — Essentia Health-St. Joseph’s Medical Center recently opened its new pharmacy in May inside the hospital.
The public is invited to the open house throughout the day until 5 p.m. Friday, May 6.
A ceremonial opening Friday morning, May 6, brought in a small group of visitors to meet staff and see the remodeled space. The pharmacy is inside the hospital and is just to the left of the lobby when using the main entrance along North Third Street in Brainerd. The pharmacy is off the corridor behind the gift shop.
Jeremy Pliscott, is the pharmacist in charge at Essentia Health and will be the manager at the facility.
“I’m super excited for this opportunity. I’ve been in the Brainerd lakes area for 30 years now,” Pliscott said. After spending some time in Grand Rapids, Pliscott said it was nice to be back home where he grew up. He’s living in Baxter with his wife and two boys.
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”It's nice to have this opportunity and then provide this service to the patients. I’m really excited about the Meds to Beds program and just making sure patients leave with the medication and the education they need and then to have another pharmacy in the community for the people around the area.”
With the Meds to Beds program, patients being discharged from the hospital have their medications brought to their bedside to eliminate an extra stop at the pharmacy in the discharge process.
The pharmacy provides prescription medication, immunizations, especially pharmacy services for uncommon medicines, consultation and has a safe disposal system for expired or unneeded medications.
“On behalf of the Brainerd lakes area business community I just want to say thank you and congratulations for investing in our community with such a fabulous facility. We are really proud to have Essentia in our community and as we heard today in the community breakfast, when this organization does well, our community does well,” said Matt Kilian, Brainerd Lakes Chamber of Commerce president. Kilian and a small group of people were on hand for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Kilian pointed out Essentia’s use of local contractors for the work and noted the contribution of Nor-son’s Mark Korte, director of commercial business development, who also attended the ceremony.
The Essentia Health Brainerd St. Joseph’s Pharmacy, 523 N. Third St., Suite 1224, is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week and will be open for holiday hours.
Essentia has curbside pickup and delivery for prescriptions and can set up a mail service with delivery typically in three to five days (there are some restrictions and controlled substances require a signature upon delivery). Most delivery meds arrive the next business day and there is no additional cost if patients are enrolled in the Essentia SynchMyMeds Program. The pharmacy has SyncPack for custom medication packaging organized by date and time and sealed in what are described as individual easy-open packages.
RENEE RICHARDSON, Brainerd Dispatch managing editor, may be reached at 218-855-5852 or renee.richardson@brainerddispatch.com . Follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DispatchBizBuzz .
