Oakland Health Mart making a difference in the community
OAKLAND, Calif. – The New Oakland Health Mart Pharmacy held its grand opening in Oakland’s Chinatown on September 6.
District Supervisor Alice Lai and the Executive Director of the Asian Health Services facilities Sherry Hirota joined owner and registered pharmacist Kam Tam at the ribbon cutting ceremony at the pharmacy, located underneath the Asian Health Center on Webster Street.
“By being located underneath the health center, customers can almost immediately get their medication,” said Tam, who has nearly 25 years of experience as a registered pharmacist and is a member of the California Pharmacy Association.
The pharmacy’s multi-lingual staff speaks more than six different languages and dialects, and product labels are in English, Chinese and Vietnamese. Such services are essential to some residents’ survival, according to Tam.
“Our pharmacy provides more services than chain pharmacies,” said Tam. “I would guess that at least 90 percent of our customers do not speak English, so the fact that we have workers who can speak Mandarin, Vietnamese, etc., is something that just sets us apart.”
Ti Doan, a 19-year-old resident of Oakland, said he has been getting his 74-year-old grandmother Nga Doan’s medication at non-chain pharmacies for a couple of years.
“Since they put the instruction in Vietnamese, my grandma doesn’t have to ask me how to use her medication or what her medication is,” said Doan. “I can remember going with her to normal stores and they would have a hard time understanding her since she doesn’t speak English.”
The pharmacy, one of hundreds of locally owned and community pharmacist-staffed Health Marts across the country, uses a new robotic computer system made by Parata Systems called MAX. It’s a fully automated robot that stores over 250 different types of medication. It can load prescriptions from the database and automatically bottle the right amount of medication into the containers, which saves the workers time, according to Tam.
The new Health Mart pharmacy will also provide diabetic patients with care through a Diabetes Life Center, a special area in the store that offers diabetic-specific products, resources and information.
“Since our staff can communicate in different languages, we can help those patients with diabetes who don’t speak English more effectively,” said Tam.
Residents like 54-year-old David Wong would like to see more pharmacies adopt the methods of the new pharmacy.
“I really like the services pharmacies like this provide,” said Wong. “It just seems more customer friendly, and the community can really benefit from places like this.”
Tam currently owns eight Health Mart pharmacies in the Alameda County.
“I just feel that the community needs places like this,” said Tam. “I just do whatever needs to be done to improve the community, and that’s why I open places like this.”
Good luck to those working in the pharmacy with a Parata RDS. This machine has been shown to greatly increase the amount of airborne drug contaminants in the site’s that use it. Read this Rueters article about it.
http://www.forbes.com//feeds/prnewswire/2008/10/16/prnewswire200810160902PR_NEWS_USPR_____NETH036B.html?partner=email
It’s normal to assume that, because they’re all over places. They had forgotten the fact that it took them four to five years before they could graduate from the community and master places of the methods. It has The new Health Mart pharmacy.