How Penn Medicine is transforming pharmacy through innovation and patient-centered care

Penn Medicine’s investment in growing an innovative pharmacy system is integrated into every level of care. Advances in automation, artificial intelligence, and delivery technology are making care easier and more personalized, while also improving efficiency. Leveraging this technology, even as many medications become more complex, today Penn Medicine pharmacists are able to spend more time directly helping patients and work seamlessly with doctors and nurses.

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“The traditional role of pharmacists has moved beyond dispensing medications—we really touch every patient that walks in the hospital,” says Penn Medicine chief pharmacy officer Nishaminy Kasbekar.

Steps from the entrance of Penn Presbyterian Medical Center is the same site that marks the beginning of pharmacy at Penn Medicine, when Pennsylvania Hospital opened its Apothecary centuries ago. Now, the hospital’s retail pharmacy is one of several crucial links that connect pharmacists into the larger chain of a patient’s care, with a demonstrated impact on their health. As the handoff from care in the hospital to care beyond, the hospital retail pharmacy allows patients to skip the extra stop on the way home to pick up medications. Research shows this offers patients the opportunity for better outcomes than if they went to a commercial retail pharmacy.

“We have shorter turnaround times, we have higher medication adherence rates. We have a higher patient satisfaction score than our competitors in the space.,” says Kasbekar. “We want the patient to walk out with the script so they could just go home.”

Patients are often surprised as they come to realize how deeply pharmacists throughout the hospital system are integrated into their care. For example, pharmacy technicians like Angelica Bonilla are at the bedside delivering and explaining medications, and helping make sure patients can follow the regimen once they’re discharged.

Bonilla and her colleagues possess that rare ability to fluently speak with providers, insurers, and patients. As a result, they often become de facto patient advocates, cutting through insurance red tape and looking for ways to make prescriptions cheaper.

“A lot of times, when it's a new patient, and they're not used to this, they’re like, ‘Oh, my other hospital, they don’t do that,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, we do it here,’” says Bonilla.

That’s typically the moment patients realize how much work is happening behind the scenes to ease and elevate the quality of their care. As potential roadblocks are handled by pharmacy techs, patients are more likely to follow their provider’s instructions and less likely to be readmitted with a complication.

Pharmacists are also using more efficient means to communicate with providers. For example, the Curatr app within Epic is a texting platform that enables teams to discuss treatment in a secure chat. This allows doctors to catch up on the details of a case during the spare moments in between seeing patients.

“We’re not annoying [doctors] with a phone call every five minutes. We’re meeting providers where they want to be met. They’re rounding, they don't want to be bothered with phone calls,” Kasbekar says.

This story is by Kris Ankarlo. Read more at Penn Medicine News.