Pharmacy informatics?

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A new grad with no special connections or postgraduate training wouldn’t qualify for any nontraditional roles. Even if you did a rotation in a non-traditional setting, you would have no leverage in an interview setting. Imagine going to an interview and all the examples you give are from your APPEs compared to seasoned candidates who can speak from real work experience.

If you wish to go nontraditional then just keep getting more degrees as it is infinitely easier to get into graduate school than getting a job as a pharmacist nowadays. There are some people who might suggest self-studying and learning informatics through free online resources but that is not work experience so if you’re going to invest the time then you’re better off having something to show for it in the form of a degree.
 
Freespirit91 said:
what new roles are there? nontraditional paths
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The myth is that you can get the best of both worlds: supposed pay, job security, and prestige of being a pharmacist and the quality of life of an techie.
 
stoichiometrist said:
The myth is that you can get the best of both worlds: supposed pay, job security, and prestige of being a pharmacist and the quality of life of an techie.
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Not a myth, I live it actually as quite a number of the NLM alumni who came out of the various institutions in the early 00s. But the sentiment is correct that it's not easy, nor is it straightforward. (Although, the prestige of being in policy really trumps pharmacy). But, it's also why I perennially disagree with you on your IT cheerleading, because the quality and caliber of the high end is very different from the standard run of the mill.

That said, we gave up arguably the best years of pharmacy paying the preparatory dues for what we have now, and we will be resilient as this market turns. I'm pretty sure I gave up somewhere in the realm of $500k in chain compensation to get the training necessary, but it did pay off in a big way with no signs of stopping (if anything, that side of work is picking up because many health systems have heartburn with their EMRs right now and are looking for support contracts outside of their company).

Yes, you can do a MS, but you need to do that at an NLM T institution for it to really matter. Most pharmacists who were successful at it do not usually work in pharmacy, but insurance and regulatory related organizations.
 
I was looking to getting a masters in Health Informatics or either public health, but I don't know if that would take me somewhere?
 
Freespirit91 said:
I was looking to getting a masters in Health Informatics or either public health, but I don't know if that would take me somewhere?
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The challenge with that is straddling the line between your pharmacy network and health informatics network (that you both build through schooling).

If you wanted to become an informatics pharmacist then you’d have to know and network with pharmacists. If you wanted to do health informatics then you might have more options (so networking becomes less important), but the types of roles available to you will not be pharmacist specific and will lead you down a path where your pharmacy degree is essentially irrelevant to your job/wasted.

In other words, if you did a informatics graduate program then your day to day network will not be people in pharmacy, so be ready to commit to a career change altogether if you go down this route. The ideal situation would be to get into a pharmacy informatics position and work on a masters while you’re already in the field, so that networking while completing your program becomes less important, but this quickly becomes a chicken-or-egg scenario.

This is why if you truly wanted to do pharmacy informatics then you’d have to go for an informatics residency— it keeps both the content and people relevant. But those programs are usually PGY-2’s so that is pretty much out of the question for you (since you won’t be completing a PGY-1 this coming year).
 
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I have a BS in comp sci but employers want that residency. Can't get over that brick wall.
 
Pharmacy is a Scam said:
The challenge with that is straddling the line between your pharmacy network and health informatics network (that you both build through schooling).

If you wanted to become an informatics pharmacist then you’d have to know and network with pharmacists. If you wanted to do health informatics then you might have more options (so networking becomes less important), but the types of roles available to you will not be pharmacist specific and will lead you down a path where your pharmacy degree is essentially irrelevant to your job/wasted.

In other words, if you did a informatics graduate program then your day to day network will not be people in pharmacy, so be ready to commit to a career change altogether if you go down this route. The ideal situation would be to get into a pharmacy informatics position and work on a masters while you’re already in the field, so that networking while completing your program becomes less important, but this quickly becomes a chicken-or-egg scenario.

This is why if you truly wanted to do pharmacy informatics then you’d have to go for an informatics residency— it keeps both the content and people relevant. But those programs are usually PGY-2’s so that is pretty much out of the question for you (since you won’t be completing a PGY-1 this coming year).
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I disagree with going the residency route. and I rotated under an informatics pharmacist who got in that position through networking without a residency. Do not doa residency ASHP does not view informatics residency as pharmacists that code or program software. Get a masters in computer science instead. you learn more useful knowledge.
 
Rx1992 said:
I disagree with going the residency route. and I rotated under an informatics pharmacist who got in that position through networking without a residency. Do not doa residency ASHP does not view informatics residency as pharmacists that code or program software. Get a masters in computer science instead. you learn more useful knowledge.
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I second this.
It is getting easier and easier to get a master of computer science or data science from a reputable program nowadays. Why wasting valuable time for a residency that kinda leads to nowhere in and out of hospital when both clinicians and programmers have no idea what extra you can bring to the table?
Unless a residency can increase earning potential in the long term, don't bother doing it. A reputable two year cs or data science degree can open doors to far more job opportunities in tech or pharma companies. Learn something that is actually useful please.
 
Right! Thank you! I am now convinced that residency is out.
One can get a masters degree that way you get another career option if you want out on pharmacy I guess.
Smart thinking!
 
I'm not convinced that a master's degree would help much with your typical hospital informatics position. Those are typically geared toward device/software implementation and maintenance. Inpatient experience and technical acumen is valued, and skills don't always transfer directly between vendors (although there are certainly skills that transfer).

Perhaps the masters would help with positions that are more focused on population health and data analysis? I'm not sure, that's completely out of my realm.

My path to break in without a residency or fellowship was to move where most men fear to tread. Find that recently released list of the best and worst states to live, and start at the bottom. These places are more desperate and might give you a shot. (for what it's worth, 3 years in a bottom 5 state gave me the experience to move to a top 5)
 
As much as I would love to be in pharmacy informatics, I don’t have hospital experience. I wish I did a residency only to have the background.

You’re supposed to make workflows more efficient. But how can you do that if you don’t even have end-user experience?? How do you make something better when you don’t know how to use it??
 
Paxil_Rose said:
As much as I would love to be in pharmacy informatics, I don’t have hospital experience. I wish I did a residency only to have the background.

You’re supposed to make workflows more efficient. But how can you do that if you don’t even have end-user experience?? How do you make something better when you don’t know how to use it??
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Find a staffing job and get some experience. Walking this path will take some planning and a certain amount of sacrifice, but it's achievable. That could be said about any niche field in pharmacy.
 
Two words of caution for those considering Pharmacy Informatics...

1. The coveted Epic Willow certification for a Pharmacist is a great asset but remember that each hospital only needs to convert from paper charts to EHR once, and each hospital only needs to convert in-to Epic once. Are you going to hit the road as a traveling implementation specialist?

2. Make sure that informatics training leads to a bump in pay. I made it through two rounds of interviewing with a large EHR vendor for a Pharmacy Analyst position back in Spring 2016. This EHR was being provided as a managed solution to a health system with EHR employees housed onsite daily at one of the sites. This was not an off-the-shelf EHR license with the health system's IT department doing the ongoing builds and tech support. The EHR vendor had lots of Systems Analysts placed around but one particular health system was requiring that the next analyst onsite everyday be a Pharmacist. The health system was not going to issue another contractor ID badge for this vendor unless they were a Pharmacist. They were tired of trying to have non-Pharmacists build order sets and dashboards for Pharmacy. However, I did not get the impression that they were going to pay me more than the Systems Analysts, which was substantially less than Pharmacist pay. While I would bring the skills to liaise between Pharmacy and the vendor's technical staff (mostly offsite, some offshore), they would have to train me how to solve quick-turnaround issues myself and train me to package specifications for bigger future builds for the technical coding staff, which I would not be performing.
 
MindGeek said:
Two words of caution for those considering Pharmacy Informatics...

1. The coveted Epic Willow certification for a Pharmacist is a great asset but remember that each hospital only needs to convert from paper charts to EHR once, and each hospital only needs to convert in-to Epic once. Are you going to hit the road as a traveling implementation specialist?

2. Make sure that informatics training leads to a bump in pay. I made it through two rounds of interviewing with a large EHR vendor for a Pharmacy Analyst position back in Spring 2016. This EHR was being provided as a managed solution to a health system with EHR employees housed onsite daily at one of the sites. This was not an off-the-shelf EHR license with the health system's IT department doing the ongoing builds and tech support. The EHR vendor had lots of Systems Analysts placed around but one particular health system was requiring that the next analyst onsite everyday be a Pharmacist. The health system was not going to issue another contractor ID badge for this vendor unless they were a Pharmacist. They were tired of trying to have non-Pharmacists build order sets and dashboards for Pharmacy. However, I did not get the impression that they were going to pay me more than the Systems Analysts, which was substantially less than Pharmacist pay. While I would bring the skills to liaise between Pharmacy and the vendor's technical staff (mostly offsite, some offshore), they would have to train me how to solve quick-turnaround issues myself and train me to package specifications for bigger future builds for the technical coding staff, which I would not be performing.
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This is an excellent point and definitely something to watch for. There doesn't appear to be a universal standard for credentialing or pay for a lot of these positions. The pay struggle can be especially apparent in organizations that handle all of this work through IT. They seem more likely to hire "pharmacy analysts" instead of pharmacists. The quality of work regarding clinical content is bound to suffer, although you may have better managed databases and interfaces since a lot of pharmacists are clumsy with technology.

My most positive experiences have been with systems that treat these positions are specialist pharmacist roles. If they are willing to require the credentials, and pay a competitive salary (understanding this requires uncommon skills and experience), they are more likely to invest in and support your work. There's a world of difference in job satisfaction between updating charging info and managing transformative projects for an institution.
 
MindGeek said:
Two words of caution for those considering Pharmacy Informatics...

1. The coveted Epic Willow certification for a Pharmacist is a great asset but remember that each hospital only needs to convert from paper charts to EHR once, and each hospital only needs to convert in-to Epic once. Are you going to hit the road as a traveling implementation specialist?

2. Make sure that informatics training leads to a bump in pay. I made it through two rounds of interviewing with a large EHR vendor for a Pharmacy Analyst position back in Spring 2016. This EHR was being provided as a managed solution to a health system with EHR employees housed onsite daily at one of the sites. This was not an off-the-shelf EHR license with the health system's IT department doing the ongoing builds and tech support. The EHR vendor had lots of Systems Analysts placed around but one particular health system was requiring that the next analyst onsite everyday be a Pharmacist. The health system was not going to issue another contractor ID badge for this vendor unless they were a Pharmacist. They were tired of trying to have non-Pharmacists build order sets and dashboards for Pharmacy. However, I did not get the impression that they were going to pay me more than the Systems Analysts, which was substantially less than Pharmacist pay. While I would bring the skills to liaise between Pharmacy and the vendor's technical staff (mostly offsite, some offshore), they would have to train me how to solve quick-turnaround issues myself and train me to package specifications for bigger future builds for the technical coding staff, which I would not be performing.
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I would have taken the job for a year or two of experience then went for something else.
 
YoungEel said:
I would have taken the job for a year or two of experience then went for something else.
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I would have but they ended up choosing another candidate before they could bring me onsite for an interview with the EHR vendor's health system-placed team. It was the 27th job I applied for and by the time they rejected me I only had 74 days left on my student loans' grace. Applied to 130 other jobs and had a full-time job offer in hand 54 days after their rejection.
 
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DIPEA said:
Pharmacist - Data Analyst at CEDARS-SINAI

A simple google search got me this~
NO residency required whatsoever, since essentially this is almost not clinically involved at all.
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its fake man, I had a talk with a IT pharmacist and they dont even know data analytics. like the real term of it, when I ask for imported data for it, they dont know how to give me pharmacy data to work on my github with
 
most of these so call data analysts in pharmacy arent even working with different sets of data, its more clinical. I dont think it can be purely IT. You just design a workflow. And the project managers def dont code at all. I saw one pharmacist work in IT pharmacy and says its full stacks when the definition is really wrong
 
Lubeckd said:
most of these so call data analysts in pharmacy arent even working with different sets of data, its more clinical. I dont think it can be purely IT. You just design a workflow. And the project managers def dont code at all. I saw one pharmacist work in IT pharmacy and says its full stacks when the definition is really wrong
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that's why i am so against residency cuz it's so soft and doesn't teach u s**t. it has the potential of making u more specialized and training u for jobs that may or may not even be there. when you suddenly realized you wanna get out, you hardly have any skills outside that niche to apply to other true IT jobs.

always go with hardcore way. code with the software/data engineer. when pharmacy sinks, whether with that so called IT pharmacy or not, you will always have a solid backup plan in place to get out in no time.
 
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Lubeckd said:
its fake man, I had a talk with a IT pharmacist and they dont even know data analytics. like the real term of it, when I ask for imported data for it, they dont know how to give me pharmacy data to work on my github with
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this actually makes me happier than ever. it just shows how incompetent IT pharmacists truly are, and they will be no match for me in 2 years, in the domain of big data analytics and machine learning.
 
DIPEA said:
that's why i am so against residency cuz it's so soft and doesn't teach u s**t. it has the potential of making u more specialized and training u for jobs that may or may not even be there. when you suddenly realized you wanna get out, you hardly have any skills outside that niche to apply to other true IT jobs.

always go with hardcore way. code with the software/data engineer. when pharmacy sinks, whether with that so called IT pharmacy or not, you will always have a solid backup plan to get out in no time.
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honestly we should start a company lol. Ill make the god damn pharmacy data and gives the corps small sharks their risk management
 
DIPEA said:
this actually makes me happier than ever. it just shows how incompetent IT pharmacists truly are, and they will be no match for me in 2 years, in the domain of big data analytics and machine learning.
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there are already no match for me. one guy said I know some pseudo data scientist from informatics pharmacy. You either know or you don't. You either know machine learning or you don't. sighs
 
they really let me down man.. its not multidisciplinary nor it is actually tech. To give it a Tech definition is to insult real tech people. They only use SQL, come on
 
DIPEA said:
that's why i am so against residency cuz it's so soft and doesn't teach u s**t. it has the potential of making u more specialized and training u for jobs that may or may not even be there. when you suddenly realized you wanna get out, you hardly have any skills outside that niche to apply to other true IT jobs.

always go with hardcore way. code with the software/data engineer. when pharmacy sinks, whether with that so called IT pharmacy or not, you will always have a solid backup plan in place to get out in no time.
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the pharmacy IT is a joke compare to the real industry. actually Software engineering is the easiestttt, I may go that route and trade on the side
 
Lubeckd said:
they really let me down man.. its not multidisciplinary nor it is actually tech. To give it a Tech definition is to insult real tech people. They only use SQL, come on
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I will give a presentation to my current preceptor on the impact of machine learning and analytics on pharmacy operation. She is actually open-minded, but she told me not to include any more in-depth stats concept more than confidence interval, mean and mode :shrug: , cuz that's all she can handle.
I really don't know what I should say man, this is just embarassing
 
DIPEA said:
I will give a presentation to my current preceptor on the impact of machine learning and analytics on pharmacy operation. She is actually open-minded, but she told me not to include any more in-depth stats concept more than confidence interval, mean and mode :shrug: , cuz that's all she can handle.
I really don't know what I should say man, this is just embarassing
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Variance, t test p test, hypothesis testing, standard dev, kurtosis, skweness, prob density function
 
Lubeckd said:
they really let me down man.. its not multidisciplinary nor it is actually tech. To give it a Tech definition is to insult real tech people. They only use SQL, come on
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actually no surprise really. girls flood in pharm schools for a reason! they came to pharm cuz they can't do math or program, can't make it to med school either, and they thought nursing was too lowly a job for them. pharm schools were their only option basically. so don't blame private pharm schools charge too much tuition, cuz there's always someone willing to pay for it.
 
Lubeckd said:
Variance, t test p test, hypothesis testing, standard dev, kurtosis, skweness, prob density function
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also some useful probability distributions, poisson, exponential, weibull
 
DIPEA said:
actually no surprise really. girls flood in pharm schools for a reason! they came to pharm cuz they can't do math or program, can't make it to med school either, and they thought nursing was too lowly a job for them. pharm schools were their only option basically. so don't blame private pharm schools charge too much tuition, cuz there's always someone willing to pay for it.
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Pharmacy school is for finding your spouse 🙂
 
Lubeckd said:
Pharmacy school is for finding your spouse 🙂
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never to forget, many asian pharm girls are ugly too, at least to actual east asian standards.
 
Lubeckd said:
Software engineering has less workload and stress than data science though...
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but data scientists tend to work a lot more with senior management, so more opportunities to move into mgmt I assume.
 
DIPEA said:
never to forget, many asian pharm girls are ugly too, at least to actual east asian standards.
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lol I only have Muslim, Jewish and small percentage of Asian in my class who act like they are gods gift to the world. And a lot of Russians. Though I can just go east and pick one out
 
Lubeckd said:
Got to work that JavaScript over python
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DS and CS are close enough. just drill more leetcode if wanna move from ds to cs. nothing hard really
 
Lubeckd said:
lol I only have Muslim, Jewish and small percentage of Asian in my class who act like they are gods gift to the world. And a lot of Russians. Though I can just go east and pick one out
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my school has east asians, indians, jewish, muslims, then some white LOL. just soooo many ugly asian girls :beat:
 
Lubeckd said:
For me imma do software engineering but Quant on the side lol... less stress that way. lol I don't hate my own people they hate me 🙂
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might date some international students lol. A LOT of them are very attractive and smart too!
 
Lubeckd said:
I have better chances with west European and Asians the most. Not abc though
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many international students from east asia are actually quite rich too. i have chatted in great depth with some of them. most don't even care about their tuition. 40k a year? 50k a year? 80k a year? whatever~ he spent 60k on FIFA games
 
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