Pharmacy informatics is defined by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists as the integration and use of knowledge, information, technology, data and automation in the medication-use process. The practice is meant to streamline patient care and outcomes while enhancing efficiency and accuracy in the administration of medications.

Often coinciding with the use of electronic health records (EHR), pharmacy informatics is being used to replace paper-and-pen prescriptions to provide more precision and clarity for medication suppliers. Although not perfect, this technological practice has fast proven itself effective as an aid to error prevention while streamlining operations, information sharing and more.

Examples of the effective use of pharmacy informatics are abundant. The Cleveland Clinic, for example, has used technology to make its smart pumps even smarter. The clinic used informatics to better program its alert alarms while reducing the risk for infusion pump programming errors related to high-risk medications. These medications have been programmed in the clinic’s pumps to run as primary infusions, not secondary. The use of secondary medications along with high-risk medications has also been prohibited in its smart pumps.

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