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 a 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
