IPSS and renovated medication bags

Last but not least, to promote and encourage clinical pharmacy services, department of pharmacy in TVGH established the “comprehensive” intelligent pharmacist service system, the IPSS”. The first major feature of the IPSS is prescription verification. Once a prescription is prescribed, it automatically imports to the IPSS for Pharmacists to verify. This verifying system is embedded with many medication knowledge database, warning and query systems, and also cross references with patient’s medical data. Helping pharmacists to evaluate the appropriateness of prescriptions more efficiently. The system also helps pharmacists to do and document clinical services. Features such as patient list management, patient summary auto-creation, formatted pharmacist’s SOAP notes and easy connections to medication error or ADR reporting systems are all designed to facilitate pharmacists’ clinical work.

The IPSS also enables the review, auditing and analysis on the documented clinical services, to ensure the quality of clinical patient care.

And In terms of applying informatics on patient education, We provide drug information to patients through several different ways. The most significant change is the renovation of medication bag labeling. Before 2001, all hospital medication bags only print limited information such as patient info, name of the medication and time of the administration. Because of our efforts, the new medication bag labeling is now bilingual and with comprehensive information including medication name, dosage, appearance description and clinical uses, important drug interaction, storage condition, and side effects with incidence rate and so on. This innovative medication bag labeling has received several countries’ patents and many awards.

And Ever since the use of the renovated medication bags, every patient gained access to comprehensive information regarding their medications, the patient inquiries and consultation on basic information reduced from ten thousands to two thousands per month. In addition to the medication bags, There are several other ways for a patient to gather information of their medications, such as the official website of our pharmacy, medication consultation through telephone or the medication information kiosks. With the information kiosk, Patient could easily scan the barcode on their medication bags to retrieve more detailed information on the medications they are currently using. Information Such as medication appearance, educational posters, and instruction videos for non-orally administered medications such as inhaler, insulin, nasal spray, and suppository et cetra.

In summary, Informatics technology is deeply incorporated into the process of medication use in TVGH. From Inventory management to prescribing, pharmacist verification, dispensing and administration. Pharmacy informatics is a broad and growing area. Selecting the right technology is vital. First, you have to define your needs and goal, to find the problem you wish to solve. Then, you move forward to find the appropriate technology or equipment that severs your needs. Pharmacists should play a leading role in the adoption of technologies to improve the medication use process. Much work is yet to be done.

One should always bare in mind that rather then saving time and labor, the ultimate goal of employing technology or information system into pharmacy services is to improve the safety use of medication and promote health outcome on patients. Thank you for listening.