Medication is an essential component of providing high-quality, safe patient care. At FCH, we are committed to quality, safety, and prioritizing each patient’s needs. Pharmacists work closely with health care professionals across our organization and others to ensure that each drug treatment is the right one for the right patient in the right dose, using the right route at the right time.

We help make sure these “Five Rights” are followed:

• The Right Patient is the one who is supposed to receive the medicine. We understand that the “right” patient is somebody’s friend or loved one.
• The Right Drug is the one the doctor ordered, meaning it is the correct drug for the illness or symptom, and it is the best and safest one to treat the specific diagnosis.
• The Right Dose is the amount of the right drug that is ideal for the person receiving the medication. Some drugs must be specially ordered based on how much the patient weighs, their height, age, kidney function and even their gender plays a role in the correct dosage because some medications affect men and women differently.
• The Right Route is how the medicine gets to where it needs to be to treat an illness, meaning where it does the most good or how fast it works.
• The Right Time is when and how often the medicine should be taken to treat a patient most effectively, for example, when a disease needs to be treated, the symptoms need to be helped, or even when the drug best kills cancer cells.