As someone who did IT support for a pharmacy in my early health IT career, I saw how pharmacists were an incredibly valuable piece of healthcare and also an underutilized resource. Over the last decade, many have come to realize the value pharmacists can provide population health efforts that goes well beyond counting pills, delivering medication usage instructions, and providing convenient vaccinations.
This was the topic of conversation between myself and Tara Pfund, PharmD, Product Manager at AssureCare, at the recent HIMSS conference. As a pharmacist herself, she shared why pharmacists’ roles in patient care are expanding and how technology can support this expanded role. Pfund also talked about what pharmacists can and should be doing to capitalize on changing state and federal laws that expand the services they can offer beyond their traditional roles.
What I found most interesting about my conversation with Pfund was how most pharmacy technology wasn’t designed to support these changing roles. Pharmacy software has largely been focused on filling prescriptions and managing the pharmacy versus documenting and billing for patient visits the way a doctors does in their EHR. Pfund shared her perspective on what technology pharmacists really need at their fingertips to support their unique practice model. Not to mention, technology and tools that pharmacists can leverage to support population health initiatives.
Check out our interview with Tara Fund, PharmD from AssureCare to learn more about the evolving role of pharmacists and the technology they need to support these changes.
Learn more about AssureCare: https://assurecare.com/
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