Have any of you looked into this? Know anyone with it? Is it helpful in terms of conferring some level of competence in order to get an entry level informatics job without the Residency path?
ASHP Pharmacy Informatics Certificate...opinions?
- Thread starter mdrx2011
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I'm generally against anything that supports credential creep and devalues your education and experience.
It's entirely possible to break into informatics without a residency. Scarcity of positions is going to be a real challenge. If you absolutely must live in a particular city then don't aspire to this specialty. If you are a Ronin you may succeed.
Edit: to add a thought..
I was looking for my first gig back in 2015 and had considered a masters in health informatics. I'm glad I didn't waste my time or money. The key was going to where the job was. I moved from a dream location to BFE (although still very metropolitan compared to my home town). Lifestyle hit with regard to location but unbelievable how much of my life I regained.
It's entirely possible to break into informatics without a residency. Scarcity of positions is going to be a real challenge. If you absolutely must live in a particular city then don't aspire to this specialty. If you are a Ronin you may succeed.
Edit: to add a thought..
I was looking for my first gig back in 2015 and had considered a masters in health informatics. I'm glad I didn't waste my time or money. The key was going to where the job was. I moved from a dream location to BFE (although still very metropolitan compared to my home town). Lifestyle hit with regard to location but unbelievable how much of my life I regained.
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I am generally against anything that has "ASHP PHARMACY" in the title. That organizations excels at brainwashing, three of their past presidents are employed at Chapman, enough said.
Great, thanks for the response...are you implying you work in informatics currently? And you did so without a residency or much of anything (aside from the motivation I guess of that side of pharmacy)? If so, can you describe your current position and the mainstays of your role?
Right, I'm just a mild-mannered pharmacist with a drive to break out of retail and engage in more impactful work in pharmacy through technology. Right now, I'm exploring paths similar to EPIC consulting, but this requires employee sponsorship, which reminds me of doing a residency or jumping through more political hurdles just to check boxes and get a job, regardless of absolute competency or qualifications. I have extensive Computer Science knowledge that I would expect translates into something at least compared to simply being present at a hospital that uses a particular software for a few months.
Sure thing. Do a thorough search of this forum for pharmacy informatics and you'll find a wealth of knowledge. There are people here with far more experience in the field than me, and several of them gave me guidance when I was first pursuing this field.
My background: hospital internship, graduated within the current decade, direct hire into clinical-staffing hybrid position, worked ~2.5 years before taking my current position in informatics.
I hold a fairly basic informatics positions (@lord999 made an informative post recently about the different types of informaticists either here or on reddit that you should seek out). My job is mostly EMR development and staff training. I'm currently working on an EMR transition so the majority of my time was dedicated to developing the new system. I feel that I'm still at the most basic level in this role, and that true data analytics will require a more robustly developed system.
From a personal standpoint, I can confirm that the work-life balance was greatly improved by taking this job. Stress levels were also reduced. I sometimes miss the excitement of an ICU shift, but it was a smart move overall.
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It really isn't going to mean anything outside of pharmacists themselves who want to hire within anyway. The currency for private industry has always been the NIH Fellowship and/or the relevant background training in business systems, and there's a real expectation that at a consulting level, that you have the sort of knowledge for protocol systems and other than pharmacy health IT systems in order for you to move around. Basically, you would apply for entry level jobs at Perot Systems or one of the IT companies that deal in this realm if you did not do the training. If you are going into the consulting field, you probably need to deal with ASAP at some level.
The American Society for Automation in Pharmacy - 2017 Annual
Read the last couple of years' presentations to get an idea of just what sort of informaticists are really out there besides those hospital posers (not to say that everyone who works hospital is ignorant, but most cannot survive outside of their exact environments and would crumple walking into an unknown institution with only your wits).
It's both painstakingly boring and interesting to work out these rules, and the reason why this place and NCPDP exists is simply because APhA just couldn't do it. The original incarnation of NCPDP came into being after APhA blew up the initial model by being their usual consensus driven incompetent selves.
By the way, on Amazon, this was well-known among us in this field for quite a while. Some of us actually were 1492 consultants during the ramp up process.
January 2016:
https://www.asapnet.org/files/January2016/Presentations/ASAPJan16_Presentation_04_Merrifield_AMZ.pdf
The American Society for Automation in Pharmacy - 2017 Annual
Read the last couple of years' presentations to get an idea of just what sort of informaticists are really out there besides those hospital posers (not to say that everyone who works hospital is ignorant, but most cannot survive outside of their exact environments and would crumple walking into an unknown institution with only your wits).
It's both painstakingly boring and interesting to work out these rules, and the reason why this place and NCPDP exists is simply because APhA just couldn't do it. The original incarnation of NCPDP came into being after APhA blew up the initial model by being their usual consensus driven incompetent selves.
By the way, on Amazon, this was well-known among us in this field for quite a while. Some of us actually were 1492 consultants during the ramp up process.
January 2016:
https://www.asapnet.org/files/January2016/Presentations/ASAPJan16_Presentation_04_Merrifield_AMZ.pdf
hey there, I have the same concern and am looking to enter the informatics field without residency. I'm writing here to ask for your advice. I'm graduating in 6 months and am planning on getting a pharmacy analyst job (my preceptor recommended doing that if not doing residency) as I lack hospital / IT experience (only independent experience). I was going to learn IT aspect first by getting 1-2 years of experience as an analyst and look for IT pharmacist job later on. If you could advise me on my plan or make suggestions/critique, I'd appreciate it so much. Thank you in advance!@lord999 @gwarm01 @moopy @kwakster928 @pharmdit
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Agreed. I'm not sure obscure certificates devalue your education and experience. But they are largely a waste of time and money.
I'm not saying you won't learn anything - you probably will. But does it *really* make you more competitive? Probably not. Just know what to expect if you decide to do it.
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Informatics is a little different than clinical in the sense that non-pharmacists evaluate your ability when you work with them. Unless you're basically the replaceable part in the health-system, informaticists (and not just pharmacist versions) are judged on their ability to make peace with the respective parties and get the work done. If you can't get the stakeholders to play well together, you won't hold the job for long. ASHP sometimes forgets that aspect, but this is one of those like the Preventative Medicine Informatics specialty where it doesn't really matter in the industry whether you have it or not since the ability judge is not necessarily your peer practitioners.
