Pharmacy IT: A Career Path for Dedicated UC Alums

The people who make sure that the patients in the Mercy Health system receive safe medicine via modern technology are members of pharmacy IT team Willow, and Mercy Health's Chief Pharmacy Officer Susan Mashni, PharmD, refers to them in superlatives.

"They're all superstars, absolute brainiacs," Mashni says of these team members who are responsible for the pharmaceutical technology aspects of patient care for the largest health system in Ohio, with 1500 physicians at 23 hospitals and clinics in Ohio and Kentucky.

"Their job takes both clinical savvy and the traditional information technology skills," she says, to build the programs to support the IV "smartpumps," ensure it is easier for the physician ordering the right medicine for the right condition, set up prior authorizations, or alert the doctor when a patient is allergic to something.

And not surprisingly, seven of the "superstar?brainiacs" on this 15-person team are graduates of the University of Cincinnati's James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy.

"We're all from different eras," team leader Tab Dehner, RPh, jests, noting he graduated from UC's pharmacy college in 1978 and then worked his way up to pharmacy director at one location, Mercy Fairfield.

In 2010, however, when the health system piloted electronic medical records software Epic at the Fairfield location, Dehner asked to be on the pharmacy IT team to work on the pharmacy arm of Epic, called CarePATH.

"We have to build the system so that it works with the way that hospital dispenses medication. There are new and existing medications and we want to make sure that when a new drug is entered into the system that it doses correctly, that it works, and that's it clinically correct," says Dehner.

2015 PharmD graduate Bryan Kirschner was working at the Mercy Health Anderson location as a pharmacy intern, but says he wanted to do more with the IT side, so when an opening came up on the Willow team he moved into the position.

"It's a rare overlap for someone who really enjoys the technical side coupled with the pharmacy clinical piece," Kirschner says, adding that his role is still geared toward direct patient care but on a much broader scale.

The impact the team has, Dehner says, also carries over to the prescriber, who needs to be able to pull up medications and dosages with ease.

"We're making it easier for the end user to be able to do what they need to do," adds Kirschner.

As the team leader since its inception, Dehner says the UC graduates who come in to the department have a very good clinical base and are very technologically savvy. "They have to know how a hospital works and functions and how things are dispensed, and they have to rely on their pharmacy training just like a retail pharmacist would."  

Mercy Health has a long history of practice partnerships with the Winkle College of Pharmacy and currently offers an internship in pharmacy IT for fourth-year PharmD candidates.

Mashni often guest lectures on U.S. Health Care and Pharmacy IT at the college and says there may soon be a rotation offered specific to pharmacy IT.

"Mercy's partnership with the Winkle College of Pharmacy has been integral to the development of our outstanding pharmacy team, in our hospitals and ambulatory clinics, in the development of a clinical research arm and in the successes of our CarePATH Willow team," says Mashni. "We are happy to continue a strong partnership with UC and look forward to new opportunities in years to come."