Program Goals and Objectives

The goals and objectives of the Pharmaceutical Information Program were developed in consultation with medical practioners and pharmacists.

The Pharmaceutical Information Program strives:

To provide the best patient care by:

• Reducing drug/drug and drug/allergy interactions
• Reducing duplicate therapy
• Reducing transcription errors
• Increasing accuracy of patient drug profile facilitating the discontinuation of drugs not required
• Supporting clinical decision making in selection of drug therapy; and
• Providing information needed to minimize drug abuse, diversion and misuse.

To improve continuity of care by:

• Facilitating the sharing of patient information across the continuum of care
• Improving the accuracy and timeliness of drug dispensing history information across all points of care; and
• Facilitating new models for delivering care such as primary health care and chronic disease management, etc.

To maintain patient confidentiality by:

• Ensuring appropriate electronic security is used;
• Adhering to privacy laws and guidelines;
• Providing patients with their drug profiles on demand; and
• Supporting patient-requested masking of prescription information.

To support appropriate drug therapy while minimizing costs by:

• Providing information on drugs covered by the drug plan;
• Providing prescribing clinicians with current information on best choice alternatives;
• Providing access to current drug information;
• Supporting compliance monitoring by providing real-time prescribing history; and
• Reducing physician visits and hospitalization due to adverse drug reactions.

To improve the operations and professional capabilities of health providers by:

• Providing real time access to patient-specific alerts and comprehensive drug information at the time of prescribing and dispensing;
• Enhancing the ability of providers to counsel patients about taking medications as prescribed and/or following treatment plans; and
• Improved management of drug therapy for patients under the care of multiple providers.