Specialty Services: A custom pharmacy for your compounding needs


     Carol Weiland's been a pharmacist for 20 years, but it's in her current role as pharmacist, owner, manager and patient advocate that she's found real satisfaction. She's the owner of Specialty Services, a business north of Clarksdale. "It's what you'd call a closed-door, pharmacy," she explains. "I don't have traffic as you would in a retail-type pharmacy."
     What she does have is a market segment that depends on her for both long term and short term health care needs. "My services usually begin with a call from a home health agency or a hospital," Weiland says. "In a hospital, for example, a patient being discharged may need to continue IV therapy at home. I'm the person who takes the doctor's prescription for the IV, makes it up, and delivers is, along with the necessary equipment, such as the IV line and pole."
     There are two main types of services she provides, IV therapy and compounding. IV therapy is the delivery of medicines or solutions via an intravenous line. The substance delivered may be anything from chemotherapy to antibiotics.
     Compounding is something you're less likely to have heard about, unless you've needed it. "It's making medicines into a form more utilizable for the patient's particular needs," says Weiland. "For example, something I compound frequently is anti-nausea medicines. If you're nauseated, taking a remedy in tablet form may not be the best option. I can take that medicine and make it into a gel that can be rubbed in the skin."
     Compounding is a specialty area of the pharmacy industry, most compounds must be made up for a specific patient at a specific dose. Most don't last long and must be refrigerated. "I can provide several doses, or a several days worth, to a patient," says Weiland. "Because the compounds are somewhat unstable, it's often not possible to mix more than a little."
     Weiland provides delivery for most of the pharmacuticals she mixes. "I'm a one person operation," she says. "The benefits are that I'm the one receiving the prescription, filling it, billing the insurance company for it and delivering it to the patient. That creates a wonderful environment where I can take the time to get to know the needs and concerns of each client."
     That environment is one of the elements Weiland enjoys the most. "In IV therapy, I'm working with the prescribing doctor, the nurse who administers the IV, and the patient. Because I'm in the home along with the nurse, we are both able to work to educate the patient about self-care, and to collect information and comments for the doctor," she says. "Sometimes it's a matter of having two sets of ears to understand the patient's concern, or to explain what's happening in terms the patient and the patient's family can understand. It's rewarding to be a part of a team like that."
     Weiland's pharmacy background included time in hospital pharmacies and retail drug stores. "I like this aspect better," she says. "In a retail setting it's just you, standing at a window getting only a brief glimpse into a customer's life. You don't know if the prescription is taken properly, or if it works at all. You just dispense it and move onto the next customer. With Specialty Services, while I do serve lots of one-time-only clients, many are being treated for chronic problems. I get to know them, and they know me. I really feel as if I'm making a meaningful difference in someone's life. And that's really neat."