What is Pharmacy Informatics?

What is Informatics?
In our own words, it is the study, invention, and implementation of hardware, software, and algorithms used to improve communication, understanding, and management of information.

What is Pharmacy Informatics?
Pharmacy Informatics is the realization of informatics in a cost effective environment that benefits the Pharmacist and the practice of Pharmacy through utilization of efficacious systems and tools.

Pharmacy Informatics for the Pharmacist
The Pharmacy Informaticist can streamline the work for a pharmacist. Whether it be a hospital, clinical, or retail setting, the pharmacist relies on computer systems to make the work more manageable. These systems can be streamlined, even enhanced, to improve work flow. A system that is developed with the pharmacist in mind--reducing keystrokes, linking comprehensive patient data, providing a complete drug interaction database--is a system that will support a pharmacist's work. Why should the Pharmacist spend 5 to 10 minutes flipping through references for a particular answer to a question? Why not have the references stored on a database of information that is cross-referenceble? The answer needed could be attained in less than half the time, be printed out in a nice patient friendly form, and give the Pharmacist the extra time to counsel the patient properly instead of racing back to the filling counter.
Is it such a radical idea to make pharmacy systems that are friendly to the Pharmacy Tech? Why not have the DUR and drug interactions screens pop up on a totally different screen in the counseling area where the Pharmacist can look at them one at a time between counseling, instead of calling the Pharmacist to come look at the screen or having the technician simply bypass the system because they happen to know the Pharmacist's code? And why not have these interactions screens give you immediate and easy-to-use information as a cross reference instead of giving you cryptic responses to a rejected claim?
In an institutional or organization setting, the Pharmacy Informaticist can better arrange information for students or members that provides an increase in the quality of learning. Educational materials that are indexed, cross-referenced, and reviewed properly is easily converted to a database that can be distributed via the Web, in a slide-show format, textbooks, or pamphlets. Publishing these materials, following HL7 standards, on the Web provides opportunities for a vast multi-link engine to access these materials. Implementing and teaching students to adopt technology on a proactive basis and even provide training so that the student is prepared to handle these new technologies can make the difference in the real work place. For example, requiring students to use the new PDA or handheld technologies while in school familiarizes them with its uses before entering the work place where a growing number of hospital physicians and pharmacists are using these devices.

Pharmacy Informatics for the Patient
The Pharmacy Informaticist can create new information databases that allow the patient to access their particular information in an easy to understand format. It can be simple to use, yet not lacking content, by providing an index and cross-referencing it with other related information via the Web. A patient that understands their particular disease state is a patient that is likely to take a more active role in their own well-being. This enhances the outcomes tremendously. And understanding is the key.... Multimedia--videos, animated pictures, sounds--can be utilized to create interactive learning experiences for patients. Video teleconferencing can become an instant source of information for a patient that has trouble staying mobile, yet can't afford costly visits to the emergency room, and still retain the quality of patient confidentiality and the feeling of interactivity with another person. Giving the patient more control over their health is key.

Pharmacy Informatics for the Health Care Provider
By improving the computer/information systems for the pharmacist, the Pharmacy Informaticist assists other health care providers both directly and indirectly. Directly, information becomes more readily available in many forms, such as a comprehensive hospital system that allows physicians, nurses, and pharmacists alike to view patient profiles thoroughly or even provide a centralized location for other providers to learn, review, or study a particular drug. Again, if these systems are arranged properly, a virtually inexhaustible resource for drug information can be created. Indirectly, pharmacists that spend less time dealing with below standard computer/information systems are free to spend more time actually being a pharmacist and dispensing knowledge of drugs to providers. The Pharmacist should be unlatched from the dispensing counter and free to move about with the Health Care Team, on the floors or with the patients, where the Pharmacist belongs. There is no other professional that holds the understanding and knowledge of drugs as the Pharmacist. Getting that Pharmacist back into the health decision-making role is key.

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