Gate City Pharmacy

At Gate City Pharmacy in Greensboro, phones ring, customers bustle in and out, and pharmacists fill prescriptions. Clerks ring up customers’ orders and a technician helps ostomy patients with product selection.

The pharmacists also prepare compounded medications, offer advice about natural health products, and give patients educational support. Gate City Pharmacy maintains the traditional quality and service of a community drug store with state-of-the art training and the equipment of a high-tech pharmacy.

Gate City Pharmacy has been involved in compounding medications since it opened at Friendly Center in 1967, but increased its compounding business in the early 1990s after joining the Professional Compounding Centers of America (PCCA), based in Houston. PCCA provides its members with training, bulk orders, equipment, and technical support. “We realized there was a need in the medical community for those unique formulas,” said staff pharmacist Janie Skertich.

If a toddler needs a medication that is manufactured only as a tablet with an adult strength, it is no problem. The Gate City pharmacists can prepare a reduced dosage for the child in a liquid form that he can swallow. If it is bitter, a little tutti-frutti or cherry flavor can be added to make it go down with a smile. For their animal customers, fish flavor is a favorite among the veterinarians.

“We make a lot of liquid preparations,” said Janie Skertich. “We encapsulate pharmaceuticals that cannot be swallowed in tablet form. Compounding pharmacists can increase or decrease the strength of a medication, add flavoring, or change the dosage form to make it easier to ingest. These changes increase compliance,” Skertich said. Gate City pharmacists compound capsules, suppositories, suspensions, and topical creams and gels.

For patients who are allergic to a dye or another inactive ingredient in a manufactured medication, compounding pharmacists can mix a preparation without that ingredient. For people with gum disease or gingivitis, they create oral rinses prescribed by dentists.

“Gate City Pharmacy strives to be a problem-solver,” Skertich said. “If doctors are faced with a problem and their regular drug store cannot meet the need, we want to be the pharmacy they call to formulate it.” If a prescription is for something unusual and the pharmacists do not have the formula, they call PCCA for the formula.

“We mix creams and ointments routinely,“ Skertich said. For patients who may get upset stomachs from anti-inflammatory tablets, the pharmacists have made topical anti-inflammatory creams and gels. The absorbing cream or gel penetrates to the area of inflammation.

For one patient, who had lost the ability to swallow tablets and capsules, they provided solutions and syrups. This allowed him to stay at home; otherwise, he would be hospitalized.

Another kind of individual attention Gate City Pharmacy provides is to monitor for drug interactions. “Gate City pharmacists specialize in scanning a patient’s medication chart and targeting interactions, not just relying on the computer, thus helping with drug-utilization review and maintaining our high standards for monitoring drug interactions,” Skertich said. Disease-state management and medication therapy management are customized services that Gate City offers. This in-depth patient counseling reduces costs to the patient and helps control the disease. “It is cost effective for the health care system because it brings about greater compliance and more efficient use of medications,” Skertich said.

The pharmacy also gives customers guidance for the herbal based items it offers. Skertich said, “We get many questions and we must be informed on the alternative products.” One Gate City pharmacist specializes in software and computer upgrades, to make sure the pharmacy is running at the highest level of efficiency. And if the store does not have something customers need, the staff will order it for them. “A lot of times, it’s a one-day turn-around,” Skertich said.

“That’s why we have loyal customers,” Skertich said, “because we go that extra mile for them.”

For more information on Gate City Pharmacy call 336-292-6888.