If you wanted to work in the pharmaceutical industry, you often pursued health education as a pharmacist. Dividing out medications and discussing their implications with customers was a basic pharmacy position. However, today's technology has created a hybrid career path in pharmacy informatics. Merging healthcare knowledge with information technology, pharmacists can now manage a pharmacy with more control than ever before.
Daily Inventory Control
Pharmacies host a wide variety of drugs, including narcotics and other small pills. Informatics integrated into a standard pharmacy creates instant inventory control. Scanning bar codes for medication verification and inventory counts keeps the pharmacy working efficiently and accurately. There are no miscounts when filling a prescription, for example. Poor inventory control results in patients receiving improper pill counts, possibly endangering their health. Accurately counting the inventory contributes to less profit loss for the pharmacy as a whole.
Enhanced Patient Care
Many pharmacies are busy hubs with several customers at the counter at one time. Pharmacists may overlook medication interactions with a line of customers at the register. With informatics, pharmacists will instantly see any issues through the computer system during checkout. This information is immediately conveyed to the customer to avoid any harmful effects. Informatics can also warn pharmacists if a patient is refilling prescriptions too quickly. This habit is often a sign of drug abuse.
Streamlining Pharmacy Workflow
Pharmacies may experiment with different workflows to streamline patient care and checkout. With informatics integrated into the computer system, pharmacies will have accurate data to approve or alter daily work positions. For example, a pharmacy may find that two pharmacists at the register and one filling prescriptions is more effective at serving the patients compared to one checkout register. The computer system records productivity with time stamps that provide critical feedback.
Gaining the Expertise
Because informatics is a relatively new area, pharmacists are pursuing higher education to master the basics such as through UIC's pharmacy informatics degree. Critical courses support this information technology, giving successful pharmacists the skills necessary to create their own system after completing the classes. Continuing education is key for this evolving industry from new informatics software to its effects on patient care.
Helping patients with their medications is the core goal of all pharmacists and pharmacies. With health education stressing pharmacy informatics, you can help a facility grow with better service and internal continuity. Using technology to better people's lives is a natural progression in the healthcare field.
*Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net.
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