Unit 1: Introduction to Pharmacy Informatics

• Pharmacy Informatics is defined as the scientific field that focuses on medication-related data and knowledge within the continuum of healthcare system including its acquisition, storage, analysis, use and dissemination in the delivery of optimal medication-related patient care and health outcomes.
• A Pharmacy Information System (PIS) provides comprehensives electronic infrastructure to support the provision and management of pharmacy services.
• Pharmacy Informatics systems are critical to the efficient and safe operation of any pharmacy business.
• Application - software's written work on a computer and designed to perform a specific task, in this context the PIS.
• Clinical Information System - a group of computers that run databases and software's applications to effectively provide comprehensive repository of patient-specific healthcare information.
• Databases - a large collection of date organized for rapid search and retrieval by a computer.
• Integrated system - when separated information systems that perform different functions share the same database, application, space and often hardware.
• Interfaced system - when separated information system are built to communicate with one another.
• Server - the heart of a network of computers, providing a centralized and organized location for the PIS, database, and application.
• Workstation - the computer in the pharmacy that a staff member uses to interact with the PIS.
• General Practice Tool - The PIS should meet the general needs of daily pharmacy practice while providing the tools to meet regulatory needs.
• General Practice Tool - In the pharmacy practice environment, the medication use process is a focal point of pharmacy practice.
• General Practice Tool - Prescribing, transcription, dispensing, administration, and monitoring include the critical components of medication use.
• Prescribing - Commonly, the PIS addresses the transcription, dispensing and monitoring of portions of the medications use process.
• Prescribing - Prescribing features are not typically included in a PIS.
• Transcription (or traditional pharmacist order entry) is the process of translating or reducing a provider's order to terms the PIS can understand. These frequently include pertinent fields to support all downstream medication use processes.
• Dispensing - In addition to transcription and verification, the PIS should also provide robust tools for medication preparation and dispensing.
• Dispensing - Some of these tools include automatic calculations (rate, concentrations), ability to customize and print labels in specific locations and batch processing.
• Dispensing - Batch processing allows the pharmacy to print a group of medication labels for preparation at one time.
• Dispensing - Pharmacies distribute thousands of doses to hospitalized patients per day. As a result, they need ways to provide scheduled products by admitted unit or patient type.
• The role of pharmacy informatics revolves around their knowledge of pharmacy practice, safe medication use, clinical decision making and the improvement of medication therapy outcomes, combined with their understanding of the discipline of informatics and HIT system.
• Roles and Importance of Pharmacist in Informatics:

  • Data, information and knowledge management
  • Information and knowledge delivery
  • Practice analytics
  • Applied clinical informatics
  • Leadership and management of change
• Information and Knowledge Delivery - Healthcare delivery is inherently complex and knowledge dependent, and it is becoming ever more challenging for providers to absorb and assimilate the growing volume and granularity of knowledge needed for safe and effective patient care.
• Information and Knowledge Delivery - The clinical knowledge available is often conflicting, misaligned, and not readily identified or available at the point of care.