Aaron Buffington: Hello, my name is Aaron Buffington. And I am the Director of Pharmacy here at San Juan Regional Medical Center. I am here to talk about an exciting new venture we're having.

For those who don't know, we are in the process of opening up a retail pharmacy, conveniently located right next to Oso Grande Coffee Shop on the first floor. This will provide us exciting opportunities for both our caregivers and the patients we care for. Our hours of operations will meet the needs for a majority of our caregivers, allowing them opportunities to pick up, drop off, or quickly grab something before or after the start of most shifts.

The goal of our service is to better serve our caregivers and our patients. We believe we can provide exceptional pharmacy care for our caregivers and our patients here. They will no longer need to have additional trips or go to outside facilities to get the medications that we can provide for them. This should save them time, money, and convenience. We will have an OTC section available for everyday needs as well if we just need to run in and grab some cold and flu medications, Tylenol, ibuprofen, allergy medications, upset stomach, a few things for the kids as they go back-to-school all in one location for them.

The ultimate goal of our retail pharmacy is to develop a Meds-to-Beds Program for our patients that we are caring for. The Meds-to-Beds Program has a personal connection to me, as my youngest daughter recently had an operation involving her hip, required hospitalization over at UNMH. And as we were getting ready to be discharged, she was placed in a spica cast and they told us they needed to pick up her medication before we left to drive three hours back to Farmington with a very groggy one-year old. And I was slightly worried about how that was going to work as it was getting later in the day. And I didn't even know which pharmacies were around this location. Not something you routinely think of as you're trying to get a sick family member situated and at home.

And as I was about to start making some phone calls to see where the script was even going to be sent to, a pharmacy technician walked in with my daughter's medication in hand saying, "This is UNMH. We're at a discharge pharmacy. We have these medications ready to go for your daughter. Sign here, and you're good to go." And I was sitting there thinking, "Wow, this is a service we need to provide for our community," especially knowing how far some of our patients travel and the opportunity we can have to have that continuity of care for them.

How the Meds to Beds program will work is, as a patient is being discharged from our facility, they can get their medications that would've been sent to an outside location filled here and have that medication in hand before they even leave the facility. No longer do we have to worry about did we write for the medication that their insurance will cover or will they pick up the medication before going home and not having go back to make an extra trip, knowing that each additional trip that they have to make greatly decreases the compliance to the discharge medications. They can have it in hand as they leave our facility.

I look forward to serving you all in the near future at our retail pharmacy. And thank you so much for listening and getting excited about our new opportunity here at San Juan.