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 b 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. b
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
