When thinking about how technology is different in aspects of healthcare, I think
mostly in my field of Pharmacy. Although when first thinking of what a Pharmacist
does - to the everyday person someone would probably say well they just fill
medications. In the healthcare world we know that there is a lot more to it than
that.
I chose 3 different Pharmacist roles, Hospital, Retail and Office based - The one
that I am most familiar with is the Office based. They work with the medical offices
to optimize patient medication therapy, Interpret data related to medication safety
and effectiveness . They provide info, education , and counseling to patients,
provide immunizations if applicable and communicate with payers to resolve issues
that may impede access to medication therapies. They use technology in the EHR
to access patient records, for allergies to medications, check on other medications
they may be on, look at reports to see how to best use medications with the
current disease states. Our pharmacists also have patients recording their blood
pressures or their blood glucose levels on a Remote patient monitoring so
technology is used there to communicate with patients via portals. They will also
use the e-prescribing function of the EHR to get medications to the pharmacies for
the patients and if the medication is not covered they can use technology to look
up formularies to help find a medication that is covered or to do an authorization
to get it covered. A retail pharmacist will use technology in a completely different
way. Those that work for CVS or Walgreens to name a few , will have a role as
giving advice if someone comes in with symptoms on what to take, training staff,
processing prescriptions that come into the pharmacy and dispensing medications,
ordering medications and managing budgets for the pharmacy as well. The
technology is mainly the system that each individual pharmacy chain uses. When a
patients prescription comes into that system - they have to look up the patient
profile - use data entry to put it in and then get it processed with their insurance.
Once that is done they will process the prescription and check to see if the patient
is on anything that will interact with the current medication and then dispense the
medication to the patient. They also have another system that keeps track of the
medications within the pharmacy (stock) what to order, when to order and what
happens if that med is out of stock from the manufacturer. There is a system of
that when a patient comes to pick up the medication - to make sure that they are
getting the correct medication and if they have any questions. The last type of
Pharmacist is the Hospital pharmacist. They will help with what form of medication
would be best for each patient (liquid, IV, oral) monitor effect of medication and
counsel patients as needed, They work with MD and nurses to recommend dosages
and safe combinations of medications and monitor drug charts and may talk to
patients as they arrive to get a complete list of medications that they are currently
on to avoid complications. There are systems within the hospital that the
pharmacist use to dispense medication for the different floors, in the ER or OR.
They all communicate with each other so that they all know what is going on.
With the different roles a Pharmacist can be utilized - the main use of technology is
a system where they can check drug information . Dosage, interactions and specific
contraindications for each patient. With the EHR, one must worry about HIPPA
and how things are accessed. But also with some systems, all MD must be able to
see what is going on. For instance in my current organization, the patient may be
seeing a specialist and they are also prescribing medication that the PCP would not
know about but it may interact with something they are giving them for a Virus. A
system that is open to all providers for this one patient may be useful in helping
with that, but also may cause more harm than good. The patient at that point may
need to have good record keeping with all the different providers that they see to
make sure all know what is going on. The ability to send prescriptions electronically
is also a good new feature. There is no confusion with handwriting trying to guess
what the medication is. Patient safety is key.
Medacs Healthcare, 2019- The Role of the Hospital Pharmacist
1999- ASHP Statement on the Pharmacist Role in Primary Care, ashp.org
