SOPIT Chair Message August 2021

August 2021

Hello, world!

Dear Colleagues,

“Hello, world!”  is the quintessential test message for any computer program, and a fitting statement for my first chair’s message for the Section. It is truly an honor to be part of this special group, as the section is the largest membership of pharmacy informatics specialists anywhere.   I have huge shoes to fill. Seth Hartman is a pharmacy informatics savant, very articulate, and did a great job as chair last year.  A big round of applause to Seth and the rest of the 2020-21 Executive Committee, Section Advisory Group Chairs, Vice-chairs, and work group leads for everything accomplished. 

Speaking of the Executive Committee, the voting results are in.  Congratulations to our new Chair-Elect, Ben Anderson and Director-at-Large-Elect, David Agüero. I look forward to your support and growth with the Section.

As an optimist, I am already excited to see where things are going this year. Another great roster of Section Advisory Groups, in-person meetings, updating the ASHP Statement on the Role of the Pharmacist in Clinical Informatics, as well as numerous other statements and guidelines needing revision. Not to mention all the webinars, podcasts, and programming our members work hard every year to deliver.

Additionally this year, ASHP and the SOPIT Executive Committee will be updating our strategic plan.

A few strategic planning focus areas include:

1. Diversity, equity, inclusion
2. Healthcare disparities
3. Public health preparedness
4. Community pharmacy practice
5. Telehealth
6. Pharmacogenomics
7. Digital health
8. Provider status and payment recognition

Barry’s Bytes

I started in the world of pharmacy informatics officially 10 years ago with little formal training, so I am constantly working on advancing my technical knowledge.  Perhaps one day I can say my informatics and pharmacy skills truly equal up! Over the years, I often ponder on the similarities between computer science and biology.  A couple of TED Talks by Michael Levin in 2020 and Sara Dunn in 2019 completely changed my view of what is the hardware and software within biological systems. These presentations demonstrate how cells and tissues can be “programmed” without altering DNA.  That is synonymous to changing programs and operating systems on a laptop.  The functions or even purpose of the device can be completely changed without altering the hardware. That concept is core to computer science today, but it is completely astonishing when seeing it happen in biological models. My mind just races thinking that one day programming cells or “living software” could be a typical informatics project, like we do today with configuring medical records, software development, database administration, etc.  These concepts certainly provide a lot of excitement for the future, but it also proves how early humanity is in understanding medicine, pharmacology, and therapeutics.  We are still just newbie hackers unraveling and learning the secrets of life. I highly recommend looking at the links if you haven’t seen these TED Talks in the past.

Important Dates

In closing

1. I look forward to working with the incoming SAG leaders and members.Thank you for your extra effort, as well to those that volunteer on other special committees or volunteer for ASHP on the Pharmacy Health Information Technology (PHIT) collaborative.You are the foundation of the section.
2. Thank you to the outgoing residents and good luck to the incoming residents, you make pharmacy informatics even more great.
3. Stay cool and be safe.

Respectfully,

Barry M. McClain, Pharm.D., M.S.
Chair, Section of Pharmacy Informatics and Technology
[email protected]