What I learned week 6

This week consisted of Dr. Siwale’s second presentation as well as a brief discussion of business analytics within the healthcare industry. To begin, I instantly made a connection within my workplace from a topic that Dr. Siwale discussed—compounding. Compounding in a pharmacy setting is the art and science of preparing personalized medications for patients. Compounded medications are made based on a practitioner’s prescription in which individual ingredients are mixed together in the exact strength and dosage form required by the patient. This method allows the compounding pharmacist to work with the patient and the prescriber to customize a medication to meet the patient’s specific needs. Dr. Siwale emphasized that with compounding, as well as every other step of the drug manufacturing process, the FDA has complete and strict control of. The FDA regulates the methods used to manufacture that drug, the facility it is produced in, the packaging, the labels, etc. Well, compounding can be a great way to engage with the customer and tailor medicine to the consumer where a mass-produced medicine fails. Trained pharmacists can now personalize medicine for patients who need specific strengths, dosage dorms, flavors, ingredients excluded from medications due to allergies, or other sensitivities. For example, say an elderly woman has a hard time swallowing pills, her pharmacist can compound that exact same drug into a liquid form, making it easier for her to take. Back to the connection, I work in a pharmacy and medical supply company and in our weekly marketing meeting we were discussing the reasons why we had to close one of our pharmacy locations—it was not new news, we knew this for a while and it is now known to the public. But while discussing the reasons why we had to close, we discussed compounding. We were wondering if compounding had become too expensive, although great and beneficial to the customer, we worried it was at the cost of the company. It was very beneficial to learn about compounding because I knew what everyone was talking about and could contribute to the conversation.

Moving on to Thursdays discussion and the readings about analytics within the healthcare industry. Some of the trends included a significant push towards analytics in the industry, although I remember reading an article from our first readings that the healthcare industry is behind other industries when it comes to IT. Many clinicians do not want to sacrifice the quality of care, just to adopt technological advances that may not even be that beneficial. Physicians, especially those in older generations, like getting face time with their patients which gives them the ability to be compassionate through their work. New medical technologies limit the personal aspect of many daily tasks. In addition, new machines and gadgets are expensive and the push towards electronic health care records pose a serious setback when EHR’s cannot be shared between various hospitals and practices. But alas, the persistent push towards analytics comes from the business side and upper management to increase efficiency within the company, which drives sales. At the end of the day, healthcare companies, pharmacies, and health insurance providers, they’re all businesses, and businesses need to make money. One cannot be vain to the fact that yes, you are providing healthcare for the greater good of the world, but you must still drive sales to stay alive as a company. Therefore, this information is beneficial to myself as a business student because in the future I can see myself administering the processes of a business to work on lowering costs, increasing efficiency and overall increasing sales to the company with the knowledge I have learned at university such as SAP.

Outside Resources Used: https://www.nuemd.com/news/2014/12/10/can-health-catch-with-other-industries