Giving Compass' Take:

• Big Island Now explains how new medical technology leveraged by the Pharm2Pharm program is improving medication management for high-risk patients.

• How can funders help replicate or expand this program? What other opportunities exist for technology to improve healthcare? 

• Learn how health information exchanges drive down healthcare costs. 

Health care providers throughout the state of Hawai‘i are using new technology from a project led by the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo that helped pharmacists manage high-risk patients’ medications across a variety of settings.

The technology was implemented and used in the federally funded $14.3 million “Pharm2Pharm” program, operated from the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy (DKICP). Pharm2Pharm established a set of tools that were implemented through Hawai‘i Health Information Exchange (HHIE) system to communicate important clinical information to support patient care.

The determined priorities that could be addressed through health information technology (IT) tools included:

  • More efficient and secure ways to transmit care transition documents;
  • Reliable access to outpatient translators;
  • More efficient ways to identify outpatient medications for medication reconciliation;
  • More efficient access to clinical information;
  • A system to document and communicate reconciled medication list and drug therapy problems; and
  • A system to manage the population of patients enrolled.

Read the full article about centralizing tech with medical care teams at Big Island Now.