UMHS Pharmacy Services Builds High-quality On-line Formulary and Patient Monitoring Project

Background
In 2004, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Sun Microsystems’ Scott McNealy nominated the University of Michigan Health System for two Smithsonian Institution Computerworld awards. UMHS won both awards, and the Smithsonian applauded the health system “for visionary use of information technology that produces and promotes positive social change.”

The Smithsonian commended UMHS for building a better online formulary and creating an excellent patient medication therapy monitoring and documentation systems project.

Building a Better On-line Formulary
A formulary is a listing of drugs that a physician may prescribe. When prescribing medication for a patient, physicians are asked – or required – to use only formulary drugs, unless there is a valid medical reason to use a non-formulary drug. 

In 2003, UMHS Pharmacy Services management decided to make the Health System’s drug formulary available on the Intranet. Staff built a “better” on-line formulary that contains the list of medications plus information on drug costs and formulary restrictions. In addition, the formulary provides links to internal systems such as UMHS’ inpatient pharmacy system and Omnicell-automated dispensing cabinets. Users can determine which Omnicell units contain specific drug products.

The formulary also has hyperlinks to online drug information through Micromedex, so that when physicians want accurate information on a specific drug, they can click on an icon that will take them directly to the information.

Patient Medication Therapy Monitoring and Documentation Systems Project
In 2003, UMHS staff created a product called PharmDoc.Net, a real-time wireless system that offers pharmacists easy access to comprehensive decision-making information. PharmDoc.Net incorporates:

PharmDoc.Net integrates all available information into one “electronic work station,” allowing pharmacists to monitor drug therapy efficient and in real time. 

PharmDoc.Net also has decision support capability, so it creates alerts to pharmacists to look at patients who meet certain criteria (e.g., on a nephrotoxic drug and kidney function begins to deteriorate). And it functions as a documentation system so it eases communication between pharmacists about what they are trying to accomplish with patient medication therapy. For example, if a pharmacist is following a patient who has a critical drug level, the pharmacist can create an alert so that any other UMHS pharmacist who might handle medication in the pharmacist’s absence will know to modify the patient's drug therapy based on the drug level.

UMHS Pharmacy Services specifically designed PharmDoc.Net to work with wireless tablet PCs in the health care environment.

The University of Michigan Technology Transfer Office has licensed PharmDoc.Net so that it may be marketed to other pharmacy departments around the country.

What this means for patients
UMHS is using the power of technology — the Web, the Internet, corporate Intranet capabilities, pharmacy information systems and data warehousing — to manage knowledge, and through its management, to improve clinical pharmacy services. This translates to a safer medication environment for all UMHS patients.

For more information
To find out more about U-M performance and Pharmacy Services, contact James G. Stevenson, Pharm.D., director, Pharmacy Services, associate dean for Clinical Sciences and professor, College of Pharmacy, at 734-647-7794.

To learn more about how the University of Michigan is committed to quality and appropriateness, contact John E. Billi, M.D., associate dean for Clinical Affairs, University of Michigan Medical School, at 734-936-5214, or Darrell Campbell Jr., M.D., chief of staff, University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers, at 734-936-5814.

For more detailed information on the medical terms used in this article, go to the University of Michigan's Health Topics A to Z