A method for familiarizing nurses with the hospital formulary.

A slide-tape audiovisual program was developed by a university-based drug information center for the purpose of familiarizing the nursing staff with our institution's formulary. The formulary contains useful information on medications stocked by our pharmacy, including costs, dosage forms, policies and procedures governing the pharmacy department, and many useful tables and figures. It was felt that the nursing staff was not aware of these components and thus, was not optimally utilizing the formulary. Nurses taking a test after the slide-tape presentation scored higher on the average than nurses from similar nursing stations who had not seen the presentation. These results, as well as the positive subjective responses from the individual nurses regarding the presentation, indicate that the slide-tape format is an effective means of acquainting the nursing staff with the hospital formulary. It is anticipated that this new awareness of the formulary will result in its more efficient use and further promote the pharmacy department as an information provider.