CPF FUNDED GRANT DETAILS

In order for community pharmacists to improve patient care, they need to have access to Electronic Health Records (EHRs) to facilitate review of patient information to optimize medication therapy. In Wisconsin, and the US, there is very little information available to community pharmacists from health systems about whether community pharmacists can access EHRs, how to access EHRs, the extent of EHR access, and health system policies and procedures related to community pharmacist access to EHRs. The availability to community pharmacists of an implementation tool kit related to best practices for accessing health systems EHRs in Wisconsin is needed and would greatly benefit care provided to patients by community pharmacists. Using the goals and strategies set forth in The Roadmap for Pharmacy Health Information Technology Integration in US Health Care:2014-2017 Update, we developed an interview guide related to community pharmacist access to EHRs that can be used to gather information from health information managers at health systems. We pilot tested the interview guide in one interview and found the guide useful to collect relevant data. The overall goal of this project is to use the interview guide to collect information from health systems in Wisconsin about aspects of EHR access and to develop an implementation tool kit that can be used to facilitate community pharmacist EHR access. In AIM 1 of the project we will conduct up to 10 interviews with health information managers at the largest health systems in Wisconsin using our validated interview guide. In AIM 2 we will interview up to 6 community pharmacists who have access to an EHR to identify best practices and strategies to access EHRs. In AIM 3 we will combine data collected in AIMs 1 &, 2 and create an implementation tool kit focused on how to access and use EHRs from the largest health systems in Wisconsin. The tool kit will be disseminated widely to community pharmacists in Wisconsin via the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsins website. The interview guide and tool kit will be shared with other states to help expand EHR access to community pharmacists.