Introduction
Computer
A computer is a device that can
be programmed to carry out a set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically according to instructions written in a software.
Conventionally, a computer consists of at least one
processing element, typically a central processing
unit (CPU), and some form of memory. The
processing element carries out arithmetic and logic operations, and a
sequencing and control unit can change the order of operations in response to
stored information.
Why computer is
important in the field of Pharmacy…?
The computer has become
a very common tool in all areas of science and technology. With the
proliferation of the Internet and the developments in computer technology and
manufacturing, the ratio of price to performance of computers continues to decrease.
This has resulted in the development of number of computer applications.
In Pharmacy field,
effective use of computers started from 1980.
Since then there is great demand of computers in pharmacy field. The field of
pharmacy has immensely benefited by the use of computer and will continue to
benefit as the pharmacist's gain more familiarity with computer. Some of the
important areas where computers are useful are new drug discovery, drug design,
analysis, manufacturing of drugs and hospital pharmacy. Other than these,
computers helps pharmacist collaborate with other professionals, which is very
essential in today's research work.
It also provides
solutions for time consuming manual task. Various hardware and softwares have
been developed without which drug discovery, designing, manufacturing and
analyzing would become virtually impossible. Further development is still in
progress which will make pharmacist's job easier.
The more important fact
is that they will enable us to discover new drugs for the complete care of
dangerous of diseases like aids, cancer etc. and reduce the cost of production
of drugs for diseases which are easily cured.
Computers are also
useful for hospital pharmacist and in telemedicine. A lot has been done and a
still has to be done for improving the computer facilities for pharmacist.
Here are some important
applications of computer in pharmacy.
Applications of computer in Pharmacy
1. Prescription filling: Patient
name, doctor name, drug name, quantity, prescription number; prints the label, calculates
the price, discount, etc.
2. Prescription
Refilling: Pharmacist
enter data regarding the prescription if data not available to avoid any
warning message appears if the prescription is out of data
3. E_
Prescribing E-prescriptions
are computer-generated prescriptions created by healthcare provider and sent
directly to pharmacy. E-prescriptions are sent electronically through a
private, secure, and closed network.
E-prescriptions are:
Ø Fast - Your prescription arrives at your pharmacy before
you leave your doctor’s office.
Ø Convenient - You don’t have to make that extra trip to drop
off your prescription at the pharmacy.
Ø Legible - There is no handwriting for the pharmacist to
interpret.
Ø Economical - makes it easier for your doctor to prescribe the
most cost effective medication based on your insurance coverage.
4. Prescription
Processing: Prescription processing is invariably one of
the main activities going on within a pharmacy on a day-to-day basis, and
computers are used to make this process more reliable and efficient.
Ø Both the customer service side of pharmacy operation
and the dispensing aspect are today carried out through the use of computing
systems.
Ø Pharmacy computers also handle customer service
activities such as sales and cash handling within the retail operation.
5. Patient
Counseling: Pharmacist can print counseling handout, prescription
label and invoice.
Ø Also handout contains any information the patient
might need to know regarding precautions or side effects of the medication
6. Patient
Profile: Pharmacist can updated
patient profile whenever a new prescription is filled
Ø Also if the patient might have any symptoms like
allergies, it should be added to patient profile
7. Drug-drug
interactions: There is program regarding this point, this
provided from many vendors offer programs for drug interaction. The pharmacist
must check the patient’s profile
and prescription to determined if there
is interaction
8. Tax
and Insurance Reports: This point
must be asked to do, so the pharmacist can print the data for medical expense.
Listing the information patient needs to file tax return or insurance claims
9. Third
Party Programs: The pharmacist
enters the patient’s identification number for verification and updating,
thereby reducing the possibility for error and often speeding the payment
procedure
10. Nursing
Home Reports: Some
information must be added by nursing home administrators, including physician
order sheet, unit dose filling profile, medication administration records, and
consultant pharmacist evaluation
11. Accounts
Receivable: This offer from vendor of computerized data
processing. In most systems the account can be aged may 30 or 60 or day
12. Pricing
Formulas: The program
is available for select specific formulas for pricing medication. It include stander structure for pricing
13. Control
Substance Records: This for
controlled substance items that order during period, along with quantities and
dosages
14. Stock
movement reports: This depend on
how much of drugs taken from previous inventory and this allowing to pharmacy
manager to minimizing the actual inventory investment
15. Merchandise
Control Reports: This point to
know the goods move fast or slow, also provide information for pricing
decisions and judges for entire store's performance
16. Electronic
Order Entry: Now the
wholesalers provide for other pharmacies interface with their central computers
to order new medications.
Ø Also pharmacy’s employees take inventory of the
shelf stock using optical scanner to read and record product codes and
quantities
17. Permanent
Shelf Labels: In-addition,
wholesalers provide shelf labels containing the product description, item
number, size, fine-line code, universal product code bars and other information
18. Customized
Price Stickers: Wholesalers
supply price stickers, also sticker include other information (quantity ordered
item number, cost and date of merchandise order)
19. Daily
and Monthly Log: Computer program can provide a pharmacy with a timely, precise review of
prescriptions broken out into prescription number, patient type, gross profit
margins and other information.
20. Management
Reports: There is a lot of
different types of reports can help the pharmacy manager in his practice and
his business. These like, accounting, payroll administration, cost and
financial analysis market analysis,
budgeting, sales forecasting and investment analysis
21. Communication: Computers are used within pharmacies to facilitate
communication.
Ø From email to other Internet-based messaging
systems, online communication allows pharmacists and other pharmacy staff to
keep in contact both within their own organization and within the professional
community.
Ø Some pharmacy companies have their own Intranet
systems for internal communications over the Internet.
22. Information: Having access to the Web via pharmacy computers is
something that has enhanced the ability of pharmacists to carry out their
duties to a higher standard.
Ø As well as giving the pharmacy staff access to the
vast store of information that is available on the Internet, including those on
specialist pharmacy resources, the
Ø Internet connects pharmacists to their peers on a
global scale.
Ø Professional communities for pharmacists operate
on-line, creating an atmosphere that is conducive to professional development.
23. Databases: Computer databases for information about medicines,
and medical treatment in general, are used within pharmacies.
Ø These database systems allow pharmacy staff to find
out information about any potential conflicts or health-care problems in a
prescribed treatment, as well as information about the details of any
particular medicine the pharmacist needs to know more about.
Ø This information may include ingredients and
potential effects as well as research and scientific data.
24. Patient
Management: Health care clinicians and administrators alike are showing enthusiasm
for one of the medical field's newest technological trends: patient information
management systems.
Ø These electronic systems serve as a database for
storing patient files.
Ø Information can be easily added, changed, deleted,
printed or audited by clicking a few buttons on the computer.
Ø Pharmacists do not have to store or carry around health
records any longer, because all they need is access to a computer or laptop to
pull up patient information.
25. Scheduling: When a patients call a pharmacy to make an order,
the representative who answers the phone can schedule them through the use of a
computer appointment scheduling system.
Ø These electronic systems allow front office staff to
add, delete or change appointments with the click of a mouse.
Ø If there is more than one order, schedules can be
sorted by Pharmacist, as well as be color-coded to indicate it when the order
be available.
26. Error
Prevention: Pharmacy computer systems can help to prevent errors
in medication, potentially saving lives and generally preserving the health of
patients.
Ø As well as checking medicines and combinations of medicines,
these systems can in some cases check on patient information.
Ø The availability of such systems varies across the
different geographical areas, but in some cases pharmacy computers are able to
check on prescribed medicines with specific reference to a patient and their
overall health-care picture.
27. Medical
Claims: Computers
are what health care companies are using to submit, review, process and pay
medical claims, according to a 2006 article by the Healthcare Financial
Management Association.
Ø Health technology trends indicate that more and more
companies are relying on computers to submit their claims, rather than
submitting them via hard copy, because computers expedite the process.
Ø Information management engineers have created
systems and technology tools that make the claims process of the medical field
more efficient and easy to use.
28. Computer
and medical education: Computers have revolutionized the
way education is handled in the today’s world.
Ø In
medical education, computers are particularly useful because there is such a
need for learning and presenting large amounts of data, getting and comparing
accurate study and test results, and effectively monitoring patients..
29. Miscellaneous
services: The
pharmacy manager can take advantage of numerous miscellaneous services offered
by wholesalers.
Ø These services include some reports regarding new
items, price changes, special offers and special discounts.
Special areas of pharmacy required
computer:
A.
USE
OF COMPUTERS IN RETAIL PHARMACY SHOP
Computers are used by community
pharmacist for various functions. Some accounting functions are like;
·
preparation
of prescription label
·
providing
a receipt for patient
·
generation
a hard copy record of transactions
·
calculating
total prescription cost
·
automatically
ordering the low quantity products via electronic transitions
·
preparation
of annual withholding payrolls.
·
Managerial
functions include generation of multiple sales analysis for a day, month, weak
and to date for number of prescriptions handled and amounts in cash.
·
Estimation
of profits and financial ration analysis
·
calculation
of number of prescription handled per unit time
·
printing
of billing and payment details
·
purchasing
and inventory control in retail pharmacy.
For
gathering of information international data banks are available such as World
standard drug database, Drug bank, MEDLARS
(Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System) and DIALOG. MEDLARS are a computerized biomedical bibliographic
retrieval system.
B.
HOSPITAL
AND CLINICAL PHARMACY
Hospital pharmacy is
division of hospital which monitors on the receiving and allotment of drugs and
medicines and professional supplies, stores them and dispenses to in-out patients.
Patient record
maintenance is vital job in hospitals but with the help of computers, data can
be maintained easily and also updated time to time.For this purpose, periodic
or perpetual inventory control systems may be adapted
·
Softwares like Microsoft Excel are
useful in maintenance of all type of numerical data.
·
Clinical pharmacist may use computers
for therapeutic drug monitoring; which are very potent and having very narrow
therapeutic.
·
Computer program are designed to
calculate drug dosage to suit individual patients need.
·
drug interactions may be screened by
using programs like MEDIPHOR
(monitoring and Evaluating of Drug interactions by a pharmacy oriented
reporting) and PAD(Pharmacy
Automated Drug Interaction Screening).
C.
COMPUTER
ADDED DRUG DESIGN
Drug
design, also sometimes referred to as rational drug design, is the inventive process
of finding new medications based on the knowledge of the biological target.
This type of drug design can be assisted by computer softwares
Various
types of softwares are available,
·
AutoDock
(The Scripps Research Institute)
·
CombiBUILD
(Sandia National Labs)
·
DockVision
(University of Alberta)
·
LIGPLOT
(University College of London)
·
SITUS (Scripps Research Institute)
·
DOCK
(UCSF Molecular Design Institute
·
Bio-Suite
(Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.), Maestro, Macro Model 5.5, Delphi etc.
D.
COMPUTERS
IN MANAGEMENT OF CLINICAL TRIALS
Clinical
trials are the important part of current drug development which provides
information about risk and benefits of any medication. Data collection and
management are very crucial in clinical trials.
The
astonishing advancement in computer hardware and software technology has had
tremendous impact on clinical trials data collection and management
·
Softwares
can be used for the trial database, data collection/data entry, randomization,
registration, study management tools, and statistical analysis.
·
Communication
between volunteer and physician is very important. Various computer assisted
methods can be utilized for communication purpose like;
e-mail
Web-sites
Video conferencing
E.
COMPUTERS
IN PUBLICATION
Publication
of research work is an important aspect in any field and pharmacy field is not
exception to it. Publishing research is a vital element of researcher’s
professional life. However, writing is not every researcher’s desired activity
and the difficulty of getting a paper published can be nerve-wracking. However
use of computers in writing and editing makes it very effortless and versatile
to prepare and publish article. Computer may be required at the different
stages for the author, publisher and reviewer.
F.
E-clinical softwares
E-clinical
softwares consist of integrated suits of application s that support clinical
research process, including various ways of data collection, data entry, remote
data capture, batch data load. These suites enable to quickly and easily design
studies, capture clinical data, some examples of e-clinical softwares are
1. Oracle clinical V4i® from
Oracle Corporation.
2. Data LabsXC® from Data labs,
Inc.
3. Trial master® from Omnicomm
systems.
4. Cliniplus® Data management
from DZC software solution, Inc.
5.
Openclinica by Akaza research (Cambridge, MA)
Pharmacokinetic
analysis is basically carried out to get information on renal clearance, volume
of distribution, metabolic deposition, absorption and multiple dosing of drug.
This type of analysis can be carried out by using different softwares.
There
are different approaches to pharmacokinetics using differential equations with
the help of softwares.
Ø NONLIN is the software which allows you
to perform statistical regression analyses to estimate the values of parameters
for linear, multivariate, polynomial, and general nonlinear functions
Ø KINPAK is software used to obtain Area
under curve (AUC), Peak plasma concentration (Cmax) and peak plasma time (tmax)
Ø ESTRIP and STRIPACT are programs which are also used for mathematical
analysis. These softwares help in therapeutic drug monitoring of patient.
COMPUTER SOFTWARE USED IN PHARMACY
1. WinPharm:
2. Pioneer
RX
3. HBS
Pharmacy Software
4. Arteb
Pharmacy Solution e.t.c
Standard pharmacy software features should include:
·
User
friendly input and recall of patient, drug and prescription information
·
HIPAA
and regulatory compliance (including DEA reporting, FDA required MedGuides)
·
Full
prescription management
·
Complete
third-party claims submissions including adjudication (V5.1, etc)
·
Failsafe
features for safety and accuracy
·
On-line
reconciliations
·
Drug-file
updates
·
Tailored
labels
·
A/R
management
·
Inventory
management
·
Electronic
wholesaler ordering
·
Bar
code scanning
·
Signature
capture
·
E
Prescribing
·
Auto
Dr fax
·
Complete
and accurate drug interaction and other databases
·
Interfaces
for POS, IVR, Automatic Dispensing Systems, reconciliation systems and other
important third party products and services
Ultimately, the
right software will allow you make better business decisions and give you an
edge in the market. A representative financial model will help you evaluate the
financial impact of pharmacy management software on your business.
USE
OF INTERNET IN PHARMACY
Internet
is collection of huge data. And this data is available for us in just a one
click. Internet is useful tool in literature survey. Books are also available
on the internet. Various research journals can be easily accessed via internet.
Organization
representing America's pharmaceutical research companies provides details of
drug development, industry news, and health guides.
Created
to facilitate interaction among healthcare professionals on specific topics
which includes discussion of cases, research and other relevant issues.
This is
official web-site of ASTRA pharmaceuticals which produces medications for
respiratory tract, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal diseases, and for pain
relief. Includes press releases.
Company
principally engaged in developing genetically-engineered human pharmaceuticals.
With career advice, and drug information.
Develops
pharmaceuticals mostly for the treatment of genetic disorders. Includes a
listing of the major drugs and their uses.
Company
that specializes in biotechnology and health care products. With career,
product, and services information.
Find out
about research projects and career opportunities at this Pfizer
pharmaceuticals. Includes health education and pharmaceutical advice section.
Roche
produces pharmaceuticals and products for treatment of HIV, obesity and cardiac
conditions. Offers news and company information.
Listing of international pharmaceutical
regulatory bodies including the US Food and Drug Administration.
Ø http://www.druginfonet.com
Drug information, disease
information, Ask the Expert, Pharmaceutical Manufacturer Information,
Healthcare news and information, Medical References / libraries.
Ø http://www.fda.gov/default.htm
Useful for checking adverse
reaction reports for dietary supplements and drug interactions
Ø www.ijpc.com
Alphabetical Index of
formulations found in the International Journal of Pharmaceutical Compounding.
Specialty articles on compounding
Ø http://www.pharmainfo.com
Pharmaceutical News,
Pharmaceutical Articles, and Pharmaceutical blogs
Ø www.fda.gov/cvm/
Searchable listing provides facts
and figures on all animal drug products approved by the FDA.
Ø www.aaps.org
Information on officers, activities
and membership from the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists
Ø http://www.sciencedirect.com
Contains research and review
articles related to pharmacy field
Advantages & Disadvantages of
Computers in a Local Pharmacy
Advantage: Accessibility
Advantage: Accessibility
•
In
a pharmaceutical setting, if the pharmacist wants to look up a
patient's prescription history or fill/renew a prescription, he can do it in
seconds, simply by entering the customer's name.
•
This
is faster than the traditional way, which consisted of riffling through filing
cabinets until the customer's folder was found.
Advantage:
Customer Time Savings
•
help
customers choose over-the-counter, or OTC, drugs. For example, according to an
April 2008 ABC article "Computer Kiosks Aid Pharmacy Needs,"
kiosk-like computers have been launched in pharmacies that allow customers to
plug in their signs and symptoms.
• The computer
will then recommend which OTC medicine might be best.
Advantage: Improving
Patient Compliance
•
Community
pharmacies can use their computer systems and direct patient access to deliver
a quality and breadth of patient care unavailable anywhere else.
•
Pharmacy
computer systems are already being used extensively for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) with other business and trading partners.
Disadvantage: Hacking
•
One
disadvantage of using computers anywhere, let alone in a local pharmacy, is
that they're susceptible to being hacked.
•
According
to the Mount Airy News article "Local Pharmacy Computers Hacked,"
most hackers target pharmacies to steal data for financial gain or for
malicious purposes such as spreading viruses.
•
However,
a potentially more serious threat is acquiring the personal information of
customers, which is data that is typically stored in such computers.
Disadvantage: Training
•
A
downside to computers is that when such technology is introduced into a work
environment, the employees there need to be able to properly use it. This
requires training, which can take time and cost money.
•
If
employees aren't properly trained to use the equipment, then the enhanced
efficiency of using the technology is no longer present.
