9 September 2022within the ADC system involves maintenance of information integral to ADC workflow such as medications available to be stocked, expiration dates, and discrepancy reports. The national opioid epidemic has increased scrutiny within hospitals for potential narcotic diversions by employees. Statistics from both the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the American Nurses Association (ANA) suggest that about 10 percent of health care workers are abusing drugs. Due to the availability of and ease of access to controlled substance medications in health care organizations, diversion of controlled substances can be difficult to detect and prevent without a comprehensive controlled substances diversion prevention program. Surveillance software are now commonplace in health-systems to identify potential diversion and identify anomalous users that have patterns of behavior that differs statistically from their peers. As diversion practices become more elaborate, surveillance software must rely on artificial intelligence (AI) to learn sophisticated patterns of diversion to identify potential abusers. Increased regulatory oversight by state boards of pharmacy of sterile intravenous drug (IV) compounding practices has hospital pharmacies implementing integrated IV software to track and document the preparation of sterile compounds in compliance with USP 797 standards. Photographic documentation of the components for the IV preparation can be uploaded and reviewed via a mobile device prior to preparation and stored on electronic compounding logs for review by a state inspector. The digitalization of health and medicine and the availability of electronic health records (EMR) have created limitless opportunities for pharmacists to tap the potential of health information technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and clinical decision support to improve clinical practice. EMRs contain information regarding prescription history, treatment outcomes, allergies, comorbidities, test results and other patient information that can provide pharmacists the necessary information at the time of prescription verification. Clinical support surveillance platforms interface with the EMR systems to perform meaningful data analysis across the health system to provide alerts when decisions and follow up review is necessary. For instance, antibiotic stewardship software can alert a pharmacist when a bacterial culture result shows that the prescribed antibiotic is not considered effective against the organism to allow the pharmacist to discuss alternative treatment therapies with the prescriber. Smart alerts can also be created to alert pharmacists when a patient's renal function declines to the point where a medication dosage adjustment may be recommended. The value of early notification alerts will continue to streamline and prioritize pharmacist's workflow.Continued advances in health information technology allow pharmacists to gain greater visibility in the patient medical information to improve patient care and reduce the chance of medication errors. Clinical decision support and AI software are among the fastest growing domain for improving the ability of pharmacists to organize workflow and prioritize clinical decision making. Perhaps the biggest barrier that remains is full interoperability of each IT application with other applications. While each application works well in silo, getting bidirectional flow of data to collateral applications will be the test of true integration and usefulness. CONTINUED ADVANCES IN HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ALLOW PHARMACISTS TO GAIN GREATER VISIBILITY IN THE PATIENT MEDICAL INFORMATION TO IMPROVE PATIENT CARE AND REDUCE THE CHANCE OF MEDICATION ERRORS
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