As caseloads grow and patient care gets more complex, the healthcare system is looking for ways to continue to drive positive outcomes, often with the same—or fewer—resources. One opportunity lies with hospital pharmacists and pharmacy care teams, and leveraging their array of skills that can contribute towards better, more effective patient care.
Pharmacists are the “Swiss army knife” of healthcare
Today’s pharmacists and the pharmacy support team have opportunities to interact with the care team in nearly any situation—from clinical to finance. “That’s a really unique asset,” says Staci Hermann, PharmD, MS, FASHP, FACHE, Vice President Embedded Clinical Decision Support Content at Wolters Kluwer Health. “To know that there is such a wide breadth and depth of skill sets within the pharmacy enterprise that you don’t typically see in other disciplines.”
According to Dr. Hermann, the multi-pronged skill set of pharmacists and their team includes:
- Clinical insight to interact with providers.
- Drug administration and patient care acumen to interact with nurses.
- Drug cost, reimbursement cycle, and insurance knowledge to interact with finance, payer relations teams, health plans, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), and other administrative functions.
- Familiarity with budgets and operations to manage teams and inventory, and to interact with organizational and financial leadership.
- Partnerships with IT teams to build out solutions and technology infrastructure – especially related to medications.
Health systems have an opportunity to leverage these skillsets and expertise in crucial operational areas to enhance care delivery and patient satisfaction.
