Department of Veterans Affairs
Ft. Sill
The Lawton Outpatient Clinic is one of the newest ambulatory clinics within the Department of Veterans Affairs health service structure. It opened on May 17, 1995, in a newly constructed facility located adjacent to Reynolds Army Community Hospital on Ft. Sill Army Base, Lawton, Oklahoma. The VA employs approximately 25 full time employees at the LOPC and several part-time employees, not to mention numerous volunteers. The clinic has been operating several years prior to this time, but was housed in a part of one of Lawton’s community hospitals, Comanche County Memorial. The clinic is currently staffed by four family practice physicians (one of whom serves as medical director), two physicians’ assistants, four nurses, two social workers, a dietitian, two staff pharmacists and other support personnel.
The pharmacy services are unique in that this service is contracted out to Southwestern Oklahoma State University School of Pharmacy so the pharmacists and pharmacy technician are all employed by the state of Oklahoma via the State Regents for Higher Education. The pharmacy service, though, is the same as that of the Oklahoma City VA system (same formulary, same policies and procedures, same operating systems.)
The pharmacy students who select this rotation will experience health care with an ambulatory focus in the federal system. Patients must qualify for services at the VA by ambulatory geriatric practice with medication management of many chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, to mention a few. Patient counseling is a strongly emphasized service for the pharmacy. Workload is calculated by patients served rather than by number of prescriptions filled. Pharmacists can access much of the patient’s record, including laboratory data, by computer.