What to Look for in a Local Pharmacy
What to Look for in a Local Pharmacy
A capable and well-informed pharmacist is a very important part of your health care team. They dispense prescription medications and help you make sense of what they are used for and how to best optimize their dosing. Along with physicians and other health care practitioners, they assist patients with achieving correct dosage levels, eliminating interactions with other medications, and providing awareness of possible side effects through counselling and informational resources.
Ideally, a pharmacist monitors and keeps track of the individual patient and their regimen of prescriptions, rather than simply filling and fetching orders for pills and topical applications. Getting to know their patients is important for monitoring health, progress, changes in dose, brand, or other alterations, and making sure that individuals and their families are taking and refilling their prescriptions properly, when necessary. Plus, they should ensure a medication is the best treatment for the individual. If a patient is reacting badly to a drug, pharmacists need to work with them to remedy this swiftly. A pharmacist who performs compounding duties (customizing medications) also needs to be highly trained, experienced, and accurate as well having access to the proper equipment and chemicals that may be required.
Along with their pharmaceutical tasks, a local pharmacy and its team needs to provide excellent customer service, convenient locations and hours, and go the extra mile to meet their patients’ needs. Consumer surveys show that pharmacies vary widely in their quality, so it’s essential to find one that takes pride in providing top quality services and care. After all, your health is not something you want left in the hands of merely adequate individuals.
MEDS Pharmacy is a local pharmacy in Toronto with three locations in the Junction, High Park, and the Kingsway (Bloor West) areas. We offer easy-to-use online refill services, plus requests made by phone, fax, or email, with delivery to anywhere in Canada. We are committed to patient care and providing independently-owned, expert pharmaceutical services that exceed those of large, generic chain stores. Discover some of the ways we make a difference below.
Active Participation
We actively manage you and your family’s prescriptions to ensure you’re taking the right medication, in the right dose and formulation, that you discontinue a prescription that is no longer needed, that multiple medicines are not interacting with each other, and that your side effects are reduced as much as possible. We proudly offer Pharmaceutical Compounding services that help us achieve this. This means we can customize medications that suit individual needs.
Pharmaceutical Compounding
Our MEDS Canadian Compounding Pharmacy (the Kingsway location) can formulate and create personalized prescription medications for you, your family, and your pets. This means we have control over precise doses (lower or higher than name brands or generic brands), ingredients, flavours, colours, format (pill, liquid, topical application), and more. This can make taking a medication easier for yourself or family members like young children or pets who may have a difficult time swallowing pills. We also aim to reduce side effects by altering the dosage and eliminating undesirable ingredients.
We work closely with many different prescribers and the Ontario College of Pharmacists. Our proven experience and well-equipped facilities allow us to create individualized solutions to improve health and wellness. We specialize in the following categories:
• Pain Management
• Bio-Identical Hormones
• Veterinary Medications
• Pediatric Medications
• Dermatological Medications
• Podiatry Medications
• Palliative Care
Medical Fittings
We’re also proud to provide custom-fit supports and braces under our Kingsway Medical Fittings Services banner. It is very important to have the confidence of an experienced and competent Certified medical fitter to provide services for the many supports and braces that we offer:
• Surgical support stockings
• Braces for support of a specific joint or area
• Cervical pillows and back rests
• Blood pressure and blood glucose monitors
• TENS units
We deal with major manufacturers and distributors only, so you can take comfort in knowing you’re wearing the best supports. We’ll also submit third party billings for garments to social services, NIHB, DVA, and the WSIB.
Customer Service
As your local pharmacy in the Junction and in our other locations in High Park and Bloor West, we understand you expect superior customer service from your pharmacy. We deliver the friendliness, helping hands, accommodations, tailoring and customization, speed and accuracy, and convenience you need. We’re available to answer any questions you have about your and your loved ones’ prescriptions, like names, instructions on how to take or use them, details about your medication history, drug interactions to look out for, and side effects you need to be aware of. Adding to the provision of regular pharmacy services, additional conveniences include providing Flu Shots, travel vaccinations, in-depth medication counseling services and so much more.
Like our compounding services and medical fittings, our customer service is also personalized. We don’t simply take and fill prescription orders but offer comprehensive services to help enhance your wellbeing and manage your conditions. Everyone has unique health needs and goals, and it can be stressful to look after someone you care about who is ill. We understand this and aim to support you as part of your team of health care providers, including your doctor.
As an independent pharmacy, we can take the time and offer attention that a bigger chain store often cannot. Consumer surveys consistently show that independent pharmacies get rated more highly in terms of information, speed, accuracy, and service. We also value and respect our patients and aim to make you feel comfortable enough to reach out and ask questions while we actively listen and respond.
Convenience
You’ve got a busy schedule and it’s vital to get the prescriptions you and your family needs when you need them. We offer three in-store locations in Toronto (The Kingsway, High Park, and the Junction), and online prescription ordering and delivery services to anywhere in Canada. Our Junction Pharmacy location is open 7 days-a-week and even on Holidays with hours from 10am to 11am. All our locations offer early evening hours (to 7pm) on weekdays, for after work pick-ups and visits. Check out the specific hours per location on our site (which may be subject to change).
Our Blog
We go beyond information about prescription medications and aim to support a holistic approach to your family’s health care. This includes providing information in-person and on our website’s informational blog. We’ll be covering topics related to dietary choices, exercise, mental health, cognition, sleep quality, self-care and wellness practices, diseases and illness, prevention tips, and more, in addition to information about prescription medications.
Developing Long-Term Customer Relationships
It’s good to find a pharmacy that supports you, that meets and exceeds all your needs, and to stick with it. This allows for patient and pharmacist to form a healthy relationship and for pharmacists and technicians to learn about specific patients’ needs, which drugs may pose a conflict or a problem, and ensure medications are being taken and refilled properly.
If you’re looking for a pharmacy who is committed to care, MEDS Pharmacy Group is here with a variety of customized services for you and your loved ones in Toronto. You can contact us to learn more using the addresses, phone numbers, and emails found under our LOCATIONS section on our site.