Hospital Pharmacy

The subspecialty in pharmacy I choose is hospital pharmacy. As a current employee at the University of Utah inpatient pharmacy, I see the implementation of the concepts of pharmacy informatics discussed in class. Pharmacy informatics enables me to practice pharmacy quickly, safely, and in the best interests of the patient. The computerized physician order entry allows for less error and requires less interpretation by the pharmacy staff. This saves the pharmacists time which they can allocate to verifying more orders.

Having a computer system with the ability to verify a drug ordered via the NDC number and implementing a final check by a pharmacist is a great contributor to patient safety. Pharmacy informatics provides us with the computer systems, databases, and interfaces to ensure the patient is getting the correct drug in the correct strength at the correct time for the disease.

The medication use cycle consists of prescribing, dispensing, administration, and monitoring.(1) As mentioned previously, the computerized physician order entry communicates the order to the pharmacy. This order absolutely cannot be dispensed until a pharmacist verifies the order, whereby it is sent to the work path to be pulled. The interface between these two systems is crucial to the retrieval of the drug for administration. The next step is administration to the patient by the nurse. The nurse relies on the electronic medical record to indicate what drug is needed for a patient and the time of administration. This again relies on a crucial interface between the system in which the pharmacist verifies the order and its subsequent appearance on the electronic medical record. Depending on whether the medicine cabinet has the drug or th...

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...le of standards and vocabulary is crucial for clinical decision support (CDS) to function properly. The basis of the “knowledge” possessed by the CDS is the ontology programmed within it. It lacks the ability to critically think and only possesses the knowledge programmed within it via standards. If one system is using one vocabulary and trying to communicate with another system which is using a different vocabulary, the system will not understand. This can result in medication errors or lack of proper medication therapy and management.

References

1. Lombardi, P.T. (2000). “Closing the Loop – Implementing Quality Improvement Processes and Advances in Technology to Decrease Medication Error.” MedScape Today.

2. Van der Maas, A.F. et al. (2001). “Requirements for Medical Modeling Languages.” J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2001 Mar-Apr; 8(2): 146–162.