A hospital pharmacy can stock thousands of medications. That’s a lot of inventory to track and understand!
When managing medications, it’s essential to know what’s available, how each is used, what risks they pose, and what safeguards might be needed to prevent patient harm.
This is where informatics pharmacists do their work – they bring together clinical knowledge with technology.
Informatics pharmacists use their expertise to help maintain and enhance the software the hospital uses to manage a patient’s care. This helps reduce errors, ensuring the best, safest care possible.
Today, we meet Greg, an Infomatics Pharmacist at Whitehorse General Hospital. He is from New Zealand and enjoys living in the Yukon.
What does your electronic system provide for the hospital?
Almost everything. It’s used for appointments, inventory control, finance, lab results, doctor’s notes, prescribing and recording medication administration. I just deal with the parts that involve medications. I guess you could say it helps everything run more efficiently.
For example, when a doctor wants to order a medication they type it into the system and that system lists the most common doses. Then they can just select the one they want. It reduces the chance of an incorrect dose being ordered for the patient.
Once the doctors place the correct order, the system instantly notifies both Pharmacy and Nursing of the new order. My pharmacy colleagues check to ensure this will be safe and effective for the patient and that the new order doesn’t interact with any of the patient’s current medications. The system also double-checks and alerts us to other potential problems. The system adds the new order to the nurse's worklist and to the record of medication that they're giving a patient. The goal is that it’s all illustrated really clearly. It shows what nurses should do with medication and when/how they should give it.
Part of the work is keeping up with new drugs as well.
If there is a new drug available, I create a file for that medication, and then I add details about how it’s used, including common doses. That then allows doctors to order that medication from the system. We also create what we call “order sets”, which are like a recipe list of things that you would order for a common clinical scenario.
So, for example, when a doctor sits down at the computer and starts typing in “heart failure,” all of the common tests, referrals and medications just pop straight up.
I am always trying to make sure information is immediately available and helpful.
You are from New Zealand, but you’re now in the Yukon! Can you tell us about that change?
I think interest in the outdoors and the availability of outdoor activities are pretty similar here.
That was really important to me when I moved here. I like to hike and bike and paddle and do all those things. I like spending a lot of time outside. And so, I was glad when coming here that I was still going to be able to do all those things here too.
It does require a bit more motivation in winter to stay active! But there is a really encouraging and supportive outdoor community in the Yukon.
We have a family here with two young kids at home. I think our family can afford a better standard of living here than we probably could have in New Zealand.
So it’s a good trade-off! Here, we can have a slightly higher standard of living, but there is the winter. But I think we’ve adapted well. We’ve taken up a bunch of winter activities like cross-country skiing, fat biking and all that sort of stuff.
How is the equipment that you use here in terms of computer systems and technology?
It's pretty comparable. I have colleagues in New Zealand who also work in Informatics. And although we use a different system, the concepts are broadly the same.
The system we use is the second-biggest electronic health record provider in North America. So, what we use in the Yukon is definitely comparable to many other places.
Is there anything unique about working in the Yukon?
Elsewhere many informatics pharmacists probably don't have clinical roles as well. But here, because we’re small I still need to be able to cover a clinical role.
That means heading up to the units to provide advice on medication use. In the hospital setting, we try to spend as much time as possible on the units, close to patients, so we’re easily accessible for any questions that the nurses or doctors might have.
We are also on-call to offer advice 24/7. So if they have questions about medications, the doctors or the nurses can phone us.
Would you have any advice for someone who is considering a career in Yukon health care?
I think this is a fantastic place to work.
The colleagues that I have here are great. It’s a really supportive environment in the hospital generally.
I will say I think the Yukon is a wonderful place to live… if you like the outdoors! If you're a big city kind of person and you like big concerts and things…yeah you’ll miss those. But if you like the outdoors, it's right on your doorstep.
I think the work-life balance here is probably better than I've had in many places. I have two young kids, and it's really nice to be able to finish work at the end of the day and still have some time to go and hang out with them!