John Barickman

John’s Story

John received a Bachelors in the Science of Pharmacy degree from the Ohio State University in Columbus and a Masters in Business Administration degree from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. John has served in multiple clinical and administrative Pharmacy and Healthcare positions throughout his career. Notably, John spent 18 years with the Main Line Health System in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he served as director of pharmacy at Bryn Mawr Hospital and Vice President of Operations at Lankenau Hospital before joining McKesson Automation as a pharmacist consultant in 2009. In 2013, the company became Aesynt, focused on providing enterprise-wide medication management solutions for all medication forms. John now specializes in IV automation consulting as the Senior Executive IV Pharmacist Consultant. He also serves on the Section of Pharmacy Informatics and Technology SAG on Pharmacy Operations Automation and lectures at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore on hospital pharmacy management and informatics/automation topics.

Facility

Aesynt provides a comprehensive portfolio of pharmacy automation and information management tools, Aesynt partners with healthcare organizations to fully optimize all medication forms enterprise-wide, driving dramatic cost reductions and improved patient safety. With market-leading solutions for sterile compounding, enterprise-wide inventory management, and medication dispensing, Aesynt is committed to developing innovative solutions to solve the most pressing medication challenges for our global healthcare partners.

Significant Projects

John serves as the senior clinical advisor to the product development team and he is responsible for identifying and consulting with current and prospective customers on best practices for IV admixture processes. John is currently working on developing a database of protocols and cGMP studies for extended dating of CSPs that can be used by customers worldwide.

Advice for Someone New to Your Specialty Area

“Contemporary IV automation is long overdue in hospital pharmacy compounding primarily because of the need for improved IV safety, but also for efficiency. In the last 5 years the technology has evolved to the point that both workflow and robotic systems are effective solutions that provide real benefit from a quality and operational perspective, but we are still only at the beginning of the adoption cycle.”

“My advice is to learn all you can about the critical quality issues that plague our IV programs in hospitals and professional compounding facilities and the technologies that are only now available to dramatically improve them and make our patients safer. Beyond that, it is a matter of building the clinical and business case for automation and workflow software and staying the course when obstacles arise. We must always be passionate in the pursuit of medication safety.”

ASHP’s Value to Members

“ASHP is a professional community that enables members to work collaboratively to improve medication use and patient safety. This collaboration creates synergies that lead to professional and individual development that could not be achieved individually.”

“By leveraging the power of its membership, ASHP is able to define the standards for our profession and help solve the challenges we face in our pharmacy practices.”