Sawyer Wylie

Sawyer Wylie received his PharmD degree from the University of Utah in 2021. He is the Pharmacy Informatics and Digital Health Fellow for Rise Informatics until April 2025, a pharmacist at the Utah Poison Control Center (UPCC), and an adjunct professor for the University of Utah College of Pharmacy. Previously, Wylie completed his undergraduate studies at Utah Valley University and worked as a technician or intern at Kroger’s, Walgreens, and the University of Utah Hospital system. Wylie is particularly interested in passive clinical decision support, synthetic data creation for personnel training through machine learning, acetaminophen ingestions, and envenomation’s. He looks forward to a career focused on enabling caregivers to provide higher quality and safer care for patients through informatics solutions. He has completed several of ASHP's certifications, including Introduction to Data Analytics and Pharmacy Informatics.

Current Responsibilities:
At Rise Informatics, Wylie develops informatics and digital solutions such as AI models for assessing patient sentiment from natural language, has used data terminologies to organize medical information in health tracking apps to support interoperability, and provided pharmacy data insights through data analytics. At the Utah Poison Control Center, Wylie provides toxicology consult services, precepts learners (medical and pharmacy students, residents, and fellows) on their toxicology rotation, lectures in the toxicology course, develops in-house clinical guidelines based on current literature, conducts quality improvement projects, and publishes toxicology research.

Facility:
Rise Informatics is a boutique informatics firm focused on healthcare technology optimization, digital medicine solution development, data analytics, and expert witness consulting. The Utah Poison Control Center provides 24/7 toxicology and drug information consultations to healthcare professionals and the public for the state of Utah, along with a variety of poison prevention initiatives. The Utah Poison Control Center is part of the University of Utah, connected with the University of Utah healthcare system, and adjacent to the academic medical center (University Hospital).

Recent Significant Projects:
At Rise Informatics I have been focused on developing an AI model to assess patient sentiment. This has involved working with clinicians, informaticists, software/AI/prompt engineers to develop training/testing data and review outputs for accuracy. This has been an eye-opening experience for the clinical opportunities that machine learning will provide in clinical care. At the Utah Poison Control Center, I recently published a study comparing n-acetylcysteine standard dosing versus increased dosing in massive/high-risk acetaminophen ingestions reported to the UPCC. This has been an open question with conflicting data reported in the last several years, and I was excited to add UPCC data to the conversation to better care for these patients.

Advice for Someone New to a Specialty Area:
Informatics can take many forms and is changing constantly. When you identify an area that’s interesting to you, hop in! Much like coding, you learn best by doing and immersing yourself consistently. Look for podcasts, newsletters/Substacks, journal articles, online courses, thought leaders on places like LinkedIn, and opportunities to test out tools so you can gain broad experiences and develop up-to-date opinions.

Involvement with ASHP:
I’m currently a member of the Section of Pharmacy Informatics and Technology Section Advisory Group on Clinical Applications. We’re developing a webinar focused on improving pharmacies' resilience to cyberattacks. Cybersecurity is a major concern to health systems, and we intend to help pharmacists understand the current landscape, recent attacks, and best practices moving forward.

Reason for ASHP Involvement:
ASHP has provided me significant value through friendships, professional connections, and specialty training. When previous SOPIT volunteers described how their work was supporting pharmacists across the country, I wanted to join!

Value of ASHP for Peers or Colleagues:
ASHP provides accessible professional certifications, and opportunities to meet committed professionals across the country through meetups and volunteer groups. Some of the best lessons I’ve adopted in my career came from interacting with the pharmacists in ASHP.

Value of ASHP for the Profession:
ASHP has consistently acted as a collective voice of American pharmacists and made impacts with legislatures and administrative bodies we could never do alone. ASHP has also set standards for pharmacist training, ensuring patients receive care by capable pharmacists.