Community Practice Environment

Clinical Viewers Support Enhanced Patient Care in Community Pharmacies

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Ontario Health is offering patient healthcare information to pharmacies, including laboratory results, dispensed medications, and acute care data through one of two provincial clinical viewers that are designated by region—ConnectingOntario and ClinicalConnect.

The viewers provide a dynamic, near real-time view of patients’ health information to support the delivery of pharmacy services such as medication management and counselling, MedsChecks, Pharmaceutical Opinions, and other patient care services at no cost to pharmacies.

Community pharmacist Zachary Thompson onboarded with ClinicalConnect in the spring of 2020. Since then, Thompson moved stores and is now beginning the onboarding process at his new location.

“We are signing up at my new job and I am thrilled,” says Thompson. “I have really missed having access to this resource.”

With a more complete picture of a patient’s health profile, clinical viewers can help pharmacists make faster, more informed care decisions while improving workflow and efficiencies at the point of care.

For Thompson, post discharge care and MedsChecks have been the greatest impacted areas since integrating clinical viewers into this pharmacy practice.

“As the pharmacist you are the last point of contact between patients who have been discharged from hospitals and their homes,” says Thompson. “Being able to tailor the discussion to the most relevant information and establish follow up discussions to go through the less pressing issues have improved rapport and saved time at the counter.”

Having access to patient’s lab work through the clinical viewers has allowed Thompson to explain dose changes more easily, such as changes in thyroid hormone supplementation or changes due to renal functions.

Prior to clinical viewers, Thompson could spend a lot of time gathering information ahead of a MedsCheck. Now, with the information more readily accessible through clinical viewers, greater focus can be placed on solutions to drug therapy problems and goals of therapy.

To access the benefits of clinical viewers, the pharmacy’s owner or corporate director can complete an online request. The sign up process is simple and Ontario Health offers support throughout the onboarding process.

Thompson’s advice for community pharmacies: “sign up for clinical viewers. It’s a robust tool for improving pharmacy’s impact on patient care.”

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