Hospital Pharmacy - February 2018 - 10

Hospital Pharmacy 53(1)

Pharmacists need to become involved with the development, testing, and early adoption of digital health solutions
within their organizations. Early pharmacist involvement in
the development of these solutions will ensure that designs
are patient-friendly, safe, and accurate. When pharmacists
are intimately involved in the development process, they will
be more engaged in prescribing mHealth. This will promote
pharmacist leverage of digital health technology, increasing
their geographical reach beyond the practice setting where
they are physically located.
Last, the pharmacy profession needs to advocate for legislative changes supporting the growth and safety of digital
health solutions. Legislation defining telehealth is critical at
both the federal and state levels to establish standards of
care, supporting reimbursement for services provided.
Regulation of mHealth and wearable devices is also required
to ensure safe and accurate data are collected so that appropriate clinical decisions can be made using these data. In
addition, we must guarantee that recommendations and references are accurate as well as current. Quality assurance
measurement and reporting must exist to identify quality and
safety issues.
The incorporation of mHealth and wearable technology
into telehealth strategies will allow pharmacists to remain
the most accessible health care provider, while having a
positive impact on medication use. Based on the current
state of digital health solutions and the opportunity for
pharmacists to play a vital role, the authors challenge pharmacists to
1.

2.
3.
4.
5.

6.
7.

Become familiar with medication-related applications (mHealth) and other technologies to help
patients, in addition to providers, effectively select,
use, and troubleshoot digital health services;
Engage with patients and providers to deliver care
outside the traditional office visit;
Monitor patients through mHealth and wearable
devices to assess medication adherence as well as
adjust medications accordingly;
Prescribe mHealth apps to patients to help them better manage their health;
Work with technology programmers to design userfriendly applications to optimize medication use in
all practice settings, while capturing quality data and
reports to be used for device improvement and value
measures;
Be legislative advocates to support recognition of
telehealth and reimbursement as well as appropriate
mHealth and device regulation; and finally,
Ask each patient about the digital health technologies they use to augment their care. If you are not
familiar with the technology, take time to learn
about it.

References
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospital Pharmacy - February 2018