Specialty Pharmacist

Specialty Pharmacist

UofL Health is a fully integrated regional academic health system with five hospitals, four medical centers, nearly 200 physician practice locations, more than 700 providers, the Frazier Rehab Institute and Brown Cancer Center. With more than 12,000 team members—physicians, surgeons, nurses, pharmacists and other highly skilled health care professionals—UofL Health is focused on one mission: delivering patient-centered care to each and every patient each and every day.

Job Description

The Specialty Pharmacist provides high-touch pharmaceutical care to patients with chronic disease states and deals exclusively with medications and pharmaceuticals that are high in costs, require special handling, are subject to limited or restricted distribution, require ongoing assessment, treat rare disease, or require active monitoring of side effects. The Specialty Pharmacist has an increased focus on patient management, medication adherence, and actively collaborates with other members of the health care team. The Specialty Pharmacist supports URAC/ACHC Accreditation Standards and has the ability to utilize metrics in analyzing optimization of patient care and adherence rates. When applicable, the Specialty Pharmacist will participate in development of new programs, services, practices, and facilitate scholarly and professional development activities.

Responsibilities include:

• Intake— Oversees the patient intake process by receiving referrals, screening patient demographic information, ensuring accurate benefits investigation and determination of payor coverage for specialty drugs, and exploring opportunities for patient financial assistance for qualified candidates.
• Clinical Management— Manages patient care by coordinating with an integrated team of health care providers, assessing clinical data, and optimizing therapy to ensure appropriateness and safety of medication use through evidence-based medicine principles. Promotes and monitors adherence and persistency.
• Fulfillment— Coordinates the processing, distribution, and delivery of referrals while maintaining product integrity, managing inventory of specialty medications, following up with patients to ensure that they received medications, and billing for services rendered.
• Outcomes— Defines, collects, integrates, analyzes, and reports data to promote and facilitate optimal treatment outcomes and evaluate the pharmacoeconomic impact of service offerings.

Essential Functions:

Supports specialty pharmacy services and specialty clinic processes

• Oversees day-to-day operations in the pharmacy as they pertain to workflow, production quotas, deadlines and accuracy of prescription processing
• Ensures the pharmacy is compliant with all accreditation standards and local, state and federal rules and regulations regarding the practice of pharmacy
• Supports the Medication Access Coordinators to ensure accuracy of dispensing-related functions, adherence to delivery schedules, and utilization of safety programs
• Assists in the performance management, orientation, and training of pharmacy personnel, as needed.
• Screens all new medication orders for appropriate dose, drug interactions, allergies, and contradictions prior to dispensing medication
• Provides verbal or written consultation and information on prescription medication for storage, side effects and drug interactions to healthcare professionals and patients
• Obtains verbal and/or written prescription orders from prescribers and/or designee
• Maintains clinical knowledge and skill level sufficient to render assistance to prescribers with regard to medication regimens and therapeutic options to ensure optimal medication therapy
• Monitors patient compliance and over-usages or under-usage patterns, provides adherence counseling, when necessary
• Identifies barriers to therapy and collaborates between customers and healthcare providers to achieve optimal outcome
• Assists with patient management responsibilities such as start of care with nurse/physician, patient care plan development and revision, and multidisciplinary patient care conferences
• Provides fulfillment process support by performing QY review, as needed
• Oversees customer billing for services rendered and financial information requirements
• Supports sales and marketing efforts in collaboration with other functional areas
• Collaborates with pharmacy leadership in the development and implementation of clinical pharmacy services and ensure compliance with policies and procedures at UofL Hospital
• Participates in on-call duties, as needed

Delivers comprehensive pharmaceutical care to patients

• Works collaboratively with other clinicians and health-care providers through multidisciplinary patient care clinics
• Review prescriptions for accuracy, appropriateness and efficacy
• Documents all pharmacy interventions in patient electronic medical record and integrated clinical decision support system
• Monitors drug therapy to evaluate appropriateness of use, dose, dosage form, regimen, route, therapeutic duplication, and drug interactions
• Provides pharmacokinetic consultations and other dosing recommendations, as required
• Prevents, detects, monitors, documents, and reports adverse drug reactions and medication errors
• Performs Comprehensive Medication Reviews and Therapeutic Interchanges in order to optimize patients' medication therapy
• Performs both admission history and discharge medication review and/or counseling in order to facilitate the admission/discharge/transfer of patients
• Provides operational support to Clinical Staff Pharmacists as determined by departmental need
• Responds to drug information requests and optimize pharmacotherapy regimens utilizing current evidence-based literature
• Provides patient counseling to answer patient questions, ensure compliance with KY statutes, and ensure optimal medication use by patients.
• Promotes public health through providing immunizations, administering long-acting injectable medications, and evaluating patients for eligibility in other clinical public health programs, like naloxone

Other Functions:

Promotes and demonstrates rational, cost-effective drug therapy

• Supports patient financial assistance processes
• Assists in the procurement of medication when necessary
• Facilitates the implementation of clinical and operational initiatives
• Assists pharmacy leadership in the determination, communication, and education of alternative therapies during medication shortages
• Promotes adherence to all 340B regulations and guidelines regarding inventory management

Facilitates and participates in scholarly and professional development activities

• Provides guidance and supervision to certified pharmacy technicians
• Precepts pharmacy students during IPPE and APPE rotations as necessary
• Precepts PGY1 residents and
• Precepts PGY2 residents, as qualified by ASHP standards
• Participates in staff development (preceptor development/continuing education) for all pharmacy learners within area of expertise
• Participates in departmental research efforts
• Actively participates in local, regional, or national organizations in area of expertise
• Collaborates with pharmacy leadership in developing education, training, and competency programs

Executes hospital and pharmacy policies and procedures

• Collaborates with pharmacy leadership in development and review of departmental policies and procedures
• Functions as a role model and as an educational resource for pharmacy staff
• Assists with recruitment and orientation of new staff members
• Performs quality assurance activities as defined by pharmacy leadership, including, but not limited to, medication history audits and control audits
• Investigates and resolves pharmacy management software-related issues
• Covers assigned shifts as determined by departmental need
• Facilitates investigational drug studies with assistance of Investigation Drug Service Manager and/or other personnel involved in the drug study

Demonstrates effective communication skills

• Utilizes advanced communication skills to convey and demonstrate clinical pharmacist expertise
• Forms collaborative relationships with pharmacy team members and other members of the healthcare team
• Maintains involvement in pharmacy department or hospital committees
• Achieves and maintains satisfactory working relationships with pharmacy leadership, pharmacy staff and other departments throughout the system, including committees and administration
• Attends departmental staff meetings

Exhibits Initiative and Judgment

• Participates collegially in the development of new programs, services and practices, and in the education activities of the department
• Maintains awareness of contemporary trends in the profession through professional literature
• Maintains compliance with all company policies, procedures and standards of conduct
• Complies with HIPAA privacy and security requirements to maintain confidentiality at all times
• Performs other duties as assigned

Additional Job Description