PHARMACY INFORMATICS

ALVIN ANTHONY S. ALBE, RPh, MSc., PhD COMPUTER FAIL, SO BE PREPARED!

Lecture Guide Notes • BACK UP STRATEGIES:
What is Pharmacy Informatics? - Personal Backups (USB drive, iCloud,gmail
_______________is the study of the best drive, any storage services)
practices in information accrual, handling, - PDB (Protein Data Bank): 24/7 service
dissemination, and comprehension using • NETWORK BASICS:
appropriate technology.
_______________________deals with the subset ___________________(aka Media Access Control
of informatics relevant to pharmacy practice. or MAC address) – unique to every computer
with 6part hexadecimal number (00-12-3F-52-B5-
The American Medical Informatics Association 29)
(AMIA) defines _______________________as _____________________- is it how the internet
“the use of information science and technology to recognizes a computer
advance medical knowledge and improve quality
of care and health system performance.” _______________________relates the hostname
to the IP address (e.g., 68.105.28.11); usually,
The American Association of Medical Colleges there is more than one, in case one fails. Humans
defines it as “the rapidly developing scientific field remember names much better than numbers.
that deals with resources, devices, and formalized Computers like numbers much better than
methods for optimizing the storage retrieval and names. DNS translates (maps) names to numbers
management of biomedical information for (IP addresses) like Google.com to 74.125.45.100;
problem solving and decision making.” this is a system much like a phone book.
Important Web sites (like Google and the PDB)
Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines have more than one IP address in case one fails.
___________________as “the scientific discipline
encompassing all aspects of biologic information Our three basic lessons were that
acquisition, processing, storage, distribution, (1) understanding of information technology
analysis, and interpretation that combines the varies widely,
tools and technology of mathematics, computer (2) it is impossible to predict the future of
science, and biology with the aim of information technology, and
understanding the biologic significance of a (3) bad things will happen.
variety of data.” Few basic rules for any laptop or desktop user to
abide by to help keep a computer working
American Society of Health-System Pharmacists efficiently and productively. Most of this
(ASHP) defines ______________________as an information is just good practice whether it is
important subset of medical informatics in applied to pharmacy informatics or not :
which pharmacists “use their knowledge of • Keep alert to changes in information
information systems and medication-use technology that will likely have an impact
processes to improve patient care by ensuring the practice of pharmacy.
that new technologies lead to safer and more • Be able to restore an operating system
effective medication use.” and major applications from their original
media should the need arise through disk
• COMPUTER ANDINFORMATICS BASICS failure or virus intrusion.
• PROCESSORS • Make regular backups of any files that
• PHYSICAL MEMORY cannot be lost. It helps to think, “What
• GRAPHICS CARDS will I lose if the disk fails?” because,
• DISK STORAGE sooner or later, it will fail.
• NETWORK CARDS • Make sure that the software firewall is
• USB PORTS turned on.
• FIREWIRE PORTS • Make sure that the latest operating
• DVDs/CDs system patches have been obtained,
 unless there is a compelling reason not to all areas of the pharmacy services
allow for automatic updates. industry.
• Purchase antivirus software and run it at
least once per week. This will protect NGC, National Guideline Clearinghouse
against new viruses as they are released. (www.guideline.gov), is a public resource for
• Install antispyware software, particularly if evidence-based clinical practice guidelines.
data exist that others should not read. • Examples of Vocabularies used in
• Have a password set on the computer to Pharmacy Practice
prevent physical access by others.
• Keep browser security settings high (for CPT Current Procedural Terminology;
Internet Explorer, select default level) or, is the most widely accepted medical
at a minimum, medium. nomenclature used to report medical procedures
• Never open mail attachments unless the and services under public and private health
sender and content are known. insurance programs. CPT is maintained by the
• Do not click on pop-up ads. They can American Medical Association.
download software (e.g., Trojan horses) to • GO (gene ontology) is used to describe
a computer. gene products (www.geneontology.org).
• Do not download any applications that
cannot be trusted. • ___________________________classifies
diseases and other health problems
_______________________is a collection of recorded on many types of health and
words with specific meaning; vital records, including death certificates
_____________________is a collection of rules and health records. It is maintained by the
that determine how the words in the controlled World Health Organization.
vocabulary can be combined and used for a • Examples of Vocabularies used in
purpose. Pharmacy Practice
• Examples of standards and the • LOINC (logical observation identifiers and
organizations codes; www.loinc.org) provides universal
• ASC X12, the Accredited Standards codes and names to identify laboratory
Committee (www.x12.org), and other clinical observations.
is an organization that develops electronic data
interchange (EDI) standards and related • ___________________________
documents for national and global markets, (www.fda.gov/cder/ndc) is a unique,
including pharmacy. three-segment number used as a
• ASTM–ASTM International universal product identifier for human
(www.astm.org) provides technical drugs and supported by the U.S. Food and
standards for materials, products, Drug Administration (FDA).
systems, and services. • ___________________(www.nlm.nih.gov
• HL7, Health Level 7 (www.hl7.org), /research/umls/rxnorm) provides
• provides standards for interoperability normalized names for clinically used
that improve care delivery, optimize work drugs and links its names to many of the
flow, reduce ambiguity, and enhance drug vocabularies commonly used in
knowledge transfer among all pharmacy management and drug
stakeholders, including healthcare interaction software.
providers, government agencies, the • ___________(systematized nomenclature
vendor community, fellow standards- of medicine—clinical terms; http://www.
developing organizations (SDOs), and nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/Snomed/sno
patients. med_main.html) is the most
• NCPDP, National Council for Prescription comprehensive vocabulary of clinical
Drug Programs (www.ncpdp.org), is an terms.
organization that develops standards for
 In the biomedical literature database, MEDLINE,
the preferred controlled vocabulary terms of the
subject field are called __________________
(MeSH). MEDLINE includes a thesaurus, the MeSH
• A DATABASE is an organized collection of database, to help users locate preferred MeSH
information on a specific subject. terms for their subjects.
e.g: Telephone, books, library catalogs,
and hospital and pharmacy information In 1997, the NLM produced ___________, the
systems first free, online version of MEDLINE.
• Database Searching
The process of specifying what the user is seeking DRUG NOMENCLATURE STANDARDS
is done through the use of filters, which can take
many forms. The filter can be a word or a group
of words, a numerical value or range, or a _______________________ (NDCs) designations
combination of both assigned to drug products distributed in the
(e.g., systolic blood pressure over 130) United States.
• Database Searching • NDC CODES PARTS
• For example, one could search the • 1ST PART- labeler code
diagnosis field for “myocardial infarction.” • 2ND PART-product code
However, someone entering data on a • 3RD PART-package code
patient might have entered “heart attack”
or “coronary artery thrombosis” as TYPES OF INFORMATION SOURCES
alternative terms for the same condition. • PRIMARY SOURCES
This then becomes a problem if one
queries the database to find out how
many patients admitted to the hospital
were diagnosed as having a myocardial
infarction. The records containing heart
attack or coronary artery thrombosis • SECONDARY SOURCES
would not be retrieved.
• BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATABASE CONTROLLED
VOCABULARIES
• A. VOCABULARY DESIGN
_________________ DATABASES are tools for
finding published materials. • TERTIARY SOURCES
For example, a search for the term “atorvastatin”
in all database fields would retrieve records with
that term appearing in any field (e.g., title,
abstract, or subject). But many of the documents
described in those records would not truly reflect
the subject of atorvastatin. BOOLEAN LOGIC
B. ___________________- The process by which
a database bundles entry terms and points them • It is used to combine search terms in a
to preferred terms . logical query to inform the bibliographic
• A search of the term “Ecotrin” or database how to interpret the query and
“acetylsalicylic acid” in a subject field that run the search.
used this controlled vocabulary would find • The three main operators in Boolean
records containing “aspirin” in the subject logic are “_______” “_______,” and
field because the entry terms mapped to “_______” (designated as “AND NOT” in
aspirin. some databases)
C. _____________________