Utilizing Information Technology to Address Oral Chemotherapy Challenges

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At the National Community Oncology Dispensing Association's (NCODA) 2018 Spring Summit, Howard Cohen, RPh, MS, FASHP, who is Director of Oncology Pharmacy Services at Smilow Cancer Hospital, talked about the role of information technology (IT) in improving medication adherence and addressing some of the challenges associated with oral chemotherapies. In this clip, Dr. Cohen explains how health systems can utilize IT as a tool to address challenges and improve patient outcomes.

Transcript

"Creating a standardized process is really one of our goals. Oral medications are hazardous drugs and they carry the same hazardous profile, or adverse profile, as the injectable drugs. So the challenge is really developing a proces making sure that we're providing the same level of vigilance for the oral agents as it was for the injectable medications. Again, the information technology becomes a tool. How do we use that tool to really improve the educational proces, improve the compliance process, improve the communication process that exists between the patient, potentially the specialty pharmacy that's filling the drugs, and the provider, is really part of the goal of utilizing IT. How do we utilize that? How do we provide that? And can we provide that?"