MEDICAL COLLEGES

OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan

MIDTER
MS
REVIEW
ER
FOR
PHARM
ACY
INFORM
ATICS
MCNP COLLEGE OF PHARMACY Page 1
 MEDICAL COLLEGES
OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan
TOPICS
Midterm– COURSE DETAILS

Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION TO PHARMACY INFORMATICS

Definition of pharmacy informatics and related terms

Role of pharmacists in informatics
Importance of pharmacy Informatics

Chapter 2. SOURCES OF DRUG INFORMATION

Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Literature

Textbook sources
Internet Sources

Chapter 3. INFORMATION SEARCH PROCESS

3.1 ISP six stage model

3.2 Electronic and non-electronic search process

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 MEDICAL COLLEGES
OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan
Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION TO PHARMACY INFORMATICS

Information, in its general sense is a numerical or non-numerical knowledge obtained from

investigation, study or instruction.
Informatics is the study of the best practices in information accrual, handling, dissemination,
and comprehension using appropriate technology.

Pharmacy informatics deals with the subset of informatics relevant to the practice of
pharmacy. It focuses on the use of information technology and drug information to optimize
medication use.

Informatics pharmacists are involved in the design, implementation, customization and

support of health information systems and technologies. They are considered as dual
specialist.

 Knowledgeable about both pharmacy practice and informatics

 Has the ability to look at both the “big picture “ and the individual details and
processes.
Competencies/ Characteristics

1. Strong understanding of pharmacy practice

2. Knowledgeable about the medication process
3. Knowledgeable about information systems, healthcare technology and automation
4. Basic understanding of database design and function
5. Current with relevant standards, regulations, and initiatives.
6. Ability to anticipate future needs and challenges
7. Ability to think about the “end user”
8. Ability to teach and guide others
9. Good communication skills
10. Project management skills

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 MEDICAL COLLEGES
OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan
11. Technology oriented
12. Innovative
13. Analytical
Roles of an Informatics Pharmacist

 Data, information, and knowledge management: managing medication-related

information while promoting integration, interoperability, and information exchange.
 Information and knowledge delivery: delivering medication-related information and
knowledge throughout the clinical knowledge life cycle, from the point of knowledge
generation through cataloging, embedding knowledge into the workflow, and measuring
the usage and effectiveness of that knowledge.
 Practice analytics: developing point-of-business analytic solutions for improving
decision-making.
 Applied clinical informatics: applying user experiences, research, and theoretical
informatics principles to improve clinical practice and usability.
 Leadership and management of change: leading and participating in the
procurement, development, implementation, customization, management, evaluation,
and continuous improvement of clinical information systems.

1. Data, Information, and Knowledge Management.

Maintenance roles and responsibilities includes:

• Corrective maintenance: taking the corrective and educative steps required to

correct problems with the utilization of a clinical information system or technology.
• Customized maintenance: modifying features already in production systems that
require updating or modification for user needs; customized maintenance is essential
in clinical information systems, as healthcare is constantly changing (e.g., new
drugs, new treatment guidance, new procedures).

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 MEDICAL COLLEGES
OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan
• Enhancement maintenance: improving the performance of applications and
people associated with the use of tools.
• Preventive maintenance: taking steps in advance to reduce the risk of a problem,
including testing before a new release or system upgrade.

2. Information and Knowledge Delivery

Knowledge Discovery and Creation.

As technology-driven transactions for results, ordering, documentation, task

completion, communication, and patient monitoring continue to grow, so will the
amount of data.

 Knowledge Application and Delivery.

Pharmacy informatics is responsible for leveraging knowledge at the right time and place within
a provider’s workflow to improve caregiver effectiveness, work satisfaction, patient satisfaction,
and the quality of care.

 Knowledge Asset Management.

Pharmacy informatics must play a significant role in managing and supporting a healthcare
system’s technology-enabled medication information and knowledge assets.

Practice Analytics

Business intelligence (BI) and business analytics (BA) processes and technologies are enabling
health systems to improve their performance and maintain their competitive advantage while
creating an additional demand for clinical informatics professionals.

3. Applied Clinical Informatics

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 MEDICAL COLLEGES
OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan
Pharmacy informatics plays a key role in delivering informatics research
principles and best practices to the bedside. Through informal and formal partnerships
with the research community, pharmacy informaticists must work collaboratively with
members of various disciplines to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and safety of
systems that support medication management.

• Acquiring professional perspective: understanding and analyzing the history and

values of the discipline and its relationship to other fields while demonstrating an
ability to read, interpret, and critique the core literature.
• Analyzing problems: analyzing, understanding, abstracting, and modeling a specific
biomedical problem in terms of data, information, and knowledge components.
• Producing solutions: troubleshooting and effectively analyzing problems to identify
and understand the spectrum of possible solutions and generating designs that
capture essential aspects of solutions and their components.
• Articulating the rationale: defending the specific solution and its advantage over
competing options.
• Implementing, evaluating, and refining: implementing the solution (including
obtaining necessary resources and managing projects), evaluating it, and iteratively
improving it.
• Innovating: creating new theories, typologies, frameworks, representations,
methods, and processes to address clinical informatics problems.
• Working collaboratively: teaming effectively with partners within and across
disciplines.
• Educating, disseminating, and discussing: communicating effectively to students and
other audiences in multiple disciplines in persuasive written and oral forms.

4. Leading and Managing Change.

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 MEDICAL COLLEGES
OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan
• Leadinghealth-system, professional, industry, regulatory, standards-setting, and
governmental organizations to sound conclusions regarding the use of technology in
medication management.
• Leading and managing the evaluation and communication of the potential risks of a
newly implemented technology and developing plans to mitigate potential hazards.
• Translating user requirements into safe and effective system designs.
• Implementing project management best practices.
• Attaining key leadership roles within the healthcare technology industry, professional
practice associations, and healthcare technology organizations.

II. Sources of Drug Information

Drug information also called as medication information, or drug informatics is the discovery,
use, and management of information in the use of medications

 Drug information sources have been traditionally classified in three different categories:
primary, secondary, and tertiary.
1. Primary Sources of Information
Primary sources are original materials. They are from the time period involved and have
not been filtered through interpretation or evaluation

 published meta-analyses
 randomized controlled trials
 observational trials
 case reports
2. Secondary Sources of Information
Secondary sources are less easily defined than primary sources. Generally, they are
accounts written after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.

 Adis International

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 MEDICAL COLLEGES
OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan
 CINAHL
 PubMed -free
 OVID
 Web of Science
 Embase
 International Pharmaceutical Abstracts
 Google Scholar- free
 Clin-Alert
 Iowa Drug Information Service.
Other secondary sources:

 Biographical works
 Commentaries, criticisms
 Dictionaries, Encyclopedias (also considered tertiary)
 Histories, Journal articles (depending on the disciple can be primary)
 Magazine and newspaper articles(this distinction varies by discipline)
 Monographs, other than fiction and autobiography

3. Tertiary Sources of information

Tertiary sources consist of information which is a distillation and collection of primary and
secondary sources. Summaries of primary resources, are abundant on the Internet.

 Bibliography of Bibliographies, Almanacs

 Bibliographies (also considered secondary), Chronologies
 Dictionaries and Encyclopedias (also considered secondary)
 Directories, Fact books, Guide books
 Indexes, abstracts, bibliographies sources
 Manuals, Textbooks (also be secondary)

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 MEDICAL COLLEGES
OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan
Clinical Study Design 

It is the formulation of trials and experiments, as well as observational studies in

medical, clinical and other types of research (e.g., epidemiological) involving human beings. 

Types of Study Designs

1. Meta-Analysis
A way of combining data from many different research studies. A meta-analysis is a
statistical process that combines the findings from individual studies.  
2. Systematic Review
A summary of the clinical literature. A systematic review is a critical assessment and
evaluation of all research studies that address a particular clinical issue.
3. Randomized Controlled Trial
A controlled clinical trial that randomly (by chance) assigns participants to two or more
groups. There are various methods to randomize study participants to their groups.
4. Cohort Study (Prospective Observational Study)
A clinical research study in which people who presently have a certain condition or
receive a particular treatment are followed over time and compared with another group
of people who are not affected by the condition.  .
5. Case-control Study
Case-control studies begin with the outcomes and do not follow people over time.
Researchers choose people with a particular result (the cases) and interview the groups
or check their records to ascertain what different experiences they had.
6. Cross-sectional study
The observation of a defined population at a single point in time or time interval.
Exposure and outcome are determined simultaneously.  
7. Case Reports and Series
A report on a series of patients with an outcome of interest. No control group is
involved.  

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 MEDICAL COLLEGES
OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan
8. Ideas, Editorials, Opinions
Put forth by experts in the field.  
9. Animal Research Studies
Studies conducted using animal subjects.  
10.Test-tube Lab Research
"Test tube" experiments conducted in a controlled laboratory setting.

Chapter 3. INFORMATION SEARCH PROCESS

Information search process

is a six stage model of the users’ holistic experience in the process of information
seeking created by Carol Collier Kuhlthau. The ISP model, based on two decades of empirical
research, identifies three realms of experience: the affective (feelings), the cognitive (thoughts)
and the physical (actions) common to each stage. The model of the ISP is articulated in a
holistic view of information seeking from the user’s perspective in six stages:

1. Initiation, when a person first becomes aware of a lack of knowledge or

understanding and feelings of uncertainty and apprehension are common.
2. Selection, when a general area, topic, or problem is identified and initial uncertainty
often gives way to a brief sense of optimism and a readiness to begin the search.
3. Exploration, when inconsistent, incompatible information is encountered and
uncertainty, confusion, and doubt frequently increase and people find themselves “in
the dip” of confidence.
4. Formulation, when a focused perspective is formed and uncertainty diminishes as
confidence begins to increase.
5. Collection, when information pertinent to the focused perspective is gathered and
uncertainty subsides as interest and involvement deepens.
6. Presentation, when the search is completed with a new understanding enabling

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 MEDICAL COLLEGES
OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan
the person to explain his or her learning to others or in someway put the learning to
use.

Electronic Search Process

Electronic information sources are defined by different scholars differently and commonly can
be defined as sources of information that are held in a digital or electronic format. EIS can be
accessed, searched or retrieved either by an electronic network or by an electronic data
processing application.

Various types of electronic information resources

 E-Journals • E-Newspaper • E-Standards

• E-Books • E-Magazines • Institution/digital

repository
• E-Database • E-Thesis
• Scholarly web resource
• E-Patents

OTHERS:

CD-ROMS, E-journals, E-Database, e-books, abstracting and indexing databases,e-clippings, e-

courseware, e-standards, e-patents, e-theses, blogs, e-newspapers, etheses and dissertation, e-
discuss forums.

 CD-ROMS
CD-ROMS are chief electronic Resource of a large amount of data with user friendly
search software.

 E-journals
Electronic Journals, which are popularly known as e-journals are scholarly journals or
intellectual magazines that can be accessed via electronic transmission.
 E- Book

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 MEDICAL COLLEGES
OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan
An e-book is an electronic version of books which can be read by computer, laptop,
palm top, mobile etc.
 Electronic Database
Database is a major source of information which can be used for the current as well as
retrospective search.
 Online Database: electronic databases are a collection of electronic information
sources. The most effective way to provide access to electronic books/journals in
University libraries is through subscription to online databases which can be
accessed through the internet

Advantages of EIS Drawbacks of EIS

 Speed  Unable to maintain standard

 Enhanced result  Unable to search older
 Access information apart from information
library’s collection  Unwanted items with required
 Multiple accesses information
 Current Information  Unstable information
 High cost for online databases

Non Electronic Search Process

Non-computer based systems are systems of organizing data, which are non-electronic
in nature.

Advantages include:

 Minimal user support/training infrastructure needed

 Unauthorised remote data access is impossible
 Able to store physical items Data is not lost when stored

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 MEDICAL COLLEGES
OF NORTHERN
PHILIPPINES
Alimannao Hills,
Peñablanca, Cagayan
 Durability to certain things
 Can only be damaged through direct physical access

Disadvantages include:

 Durability to certain things

 Difficulty in backing up data
 Can result in excessive amounts of redundant data
 Manual processes are required to query, sort, and maintain the system

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