Angelina Babakitis, a Doctor of Pharmacy student in the pharmacy informatics focus track at the Belmont University College of Pharmacy, recently presented a poster at the Health Information Management System Society (HIMSS) 2019 Global Conference in Orlando, Florida.
The poster, entitled “Enhancing pharmacist intervention effectiveness by implementing custom clinical decision support,” was authored by Babakitis, PharmD Candidate 2020, Wesley Geminn, PharmD, BCPP and Erica Schlesinger, PharmD. It describes the development of clinical decision support (CDS) tools to aid pharmacists when verifying medication orders for pregnant patients at four state-funded regional mental health institutes.
When medications carrying a high risk for pregnant patients are ordered, the pharmacist is warned with a custom notification. Before the pharmacist approves the order, they must weigh the benefits and risks of using the medication or contact the physician regarding risk.
This custom CDS tool has led to more meaningful and direct communication between the pharmacist and physician and increased safety for patients.
Belmont’s College of Pharmacy is the only pharmacy school in the US to be recognized as a Health Information Management System Society (HIMSS) Approved Education Partner (AEP). As the sponsor of the HIMSS/Belmont partnership, Associate Professor Anthony Blash, Pharm.D., CPHIMS has created a four-course sequence of classes that meets the HIMSS rigorous standards for quality health IT or healthcare education. The informatics courses provide student pharmacists in the healthcare informatics focus track an advanced knowledge of health IT upon graduation. Additionally, through a combination of expert conversation, live projects and traditional study, students gain the advanced knowledge of healthcare informatics needed to successfully achieve the Certified Associate in Healthcare Information & Management Systems (CAHIMS) certification, further demonstrating the certificate holder’s knowledge of health IT and management systems.
Babakitis was the only student of the nine presenters which included an emergency medicine professor from Harvard Medical School, a quality performance management associate from Athenahealth, a manager from the Medical University of South Carolina College of Medicine HR Center of Expertise, a program manager of patient access at Emory Healthcare, an associate professor of health informatics from Florida Polytechnic University, a nurse manager at the University of Colorado Health’s Virtual Health Center and a clinical assistant professor of informatics at Georgia State University’s College of Nursing.
