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Pharmacy and Pharmacy Tech Continuing Education Details

The University of Georgia College of Pharmacy is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education as a provider of  continuing pharmacy education.

The following sessions are approved for Pharmacy and Pharmacy Tech CPE. Click on the session title for details regarding each session.

The requirements for successful completion of the CPE activity are listed below:

  1. Pick up a Request for Pharmacist/Pharmacy Tech Continuing Education Session form onsite. These forms are available at the information desks throughout the conference as well as the registration desk.
  2. Complete session evaluation after each session and return to room monitor.
  3. Return the completed form back to the registration or information desk.  You should keep the pink copy of the form for your own records.
  4. Credit will be awarded upon attendance and participation in the requested session(s), completion of the course evaluation(s) and submission of the Request for Continuing Education credit.

Statement of credit will be mailed to you in 4-6 weeks.

#1503 – Care Alerts Development and Governance at the University of Colorado Hospital

September 10, 2025 – 3:00pm-4:00pm
Pharmacist ACPE #014-999-09-038-L04-P
Pharmacy Tech ACPE #014-999-09-038-L04-T

Description

Several Care Alerts currently in use at the University of Colorado Hospital will be used to describe Medical Logic Module (MLM) development and governance process. Michael will provide examples of Arden Syntax code for solving selected problems including proxy-diagnosis. Our Medical Emergency Team MLM and Pneumonia & Vaccine MLM will serve as examples to explain development and study processes, including the use of SQL as a research tool for ROI & CQI to enhance these MLMs.\

Objectives

  • Discuss the multidisciplinary nature of medical logic modules development and governance; and differences for large and small MLMs.
  • Explain one method of using standard query language as a research tool for return on investment and continuous quality improvement of medical logic modules.
  • Describe a few Arden Syntax coding techniques for selected problems.

Presenter

Michael Jones RPh, University of Colorado Hospital
Mike is Pharmacy Informaticist at University of Colorado Hospital specializing in Clinical Decision Support. He has a BS in Pharmacy from the University of New Mexico, and a PharmD and post-doctoral fellowship in pediatrics from the University of Minnesota.   In the 1990s he was a member of HL7 CDS Technical Committee that advanced the Arden Syntax Standard from version 1 to 2.5.   

#2006 – Scan the Bag: Scanning Premade IVs for Bar Code Medication Administration

September 11, 2025 – 11:00am-12:00pm
Pharmacist ACPE #014-999-09-039-L04-P
Pharmacy Tech ACPE #014-999-09-039-L04-T

Description

Manufacturer barcodes are not routinely scanned for intravenous (IV) medication administration when using barcode medication administration technology.  The speaker will outline the steps taken to make it possible to scan the manufacturer barcode on premade IV piggybacks – reducing the potential for administration errors.

Objectives

  • Discuss the value of scanning the manufacturer barcode for premade IVPBs.
  • Describe the implementation process.
  • List barriers, limitations and process challenges identified. 

Presenter

Beatrice Villegas RPh, St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital
A licensed pharmacist for 17 years with diverse experience in both the public and private sectors, including inpatient, outpatient clinic, retail and independent. Positions held range from staffing to management. Some past professional involvements include brown bag drug talks with new med residents, pharmacy interns and senior citizens, P & T committee member, the organization and staffing of an interactive Geriatric Pharmacy within a community geriatric clinic, maintenance of an Early Intervention AIDS clinic, and drug counseling for a Women’s Intervention AIDS clinic.     Recently accepting my greatest professional challenge to date, an Informatics Pharmacist at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital; a new and innovative position in practice of pharmacy. An Informatics Pharmacist plays a vital role within all areas of the department and must interactive effectively with other departments/vendors to accomplish desired results. The maintenance, support, and improvement of clinical software applications keeps this role in a constant state of change. 
 
Divya Varkey, St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital
After graduation from Purdue University School of Pharmacy, I completed a combined MS/Pharmacy Administration at The Ohio State University Medical Center.  Upon completion, I accepted the Inpatient Pharmacy Manager role at Wishard Health Services in Indianapolis, IN.  I was responsible for managing the daily operation of the inpatient pharmacy, including the development and implementation of methods and systems to improve overall safety, efficiency and effectiveness of services provided.   After moving to Houston, TX in August 2008, I accepted the Informatics Pharmacist role at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital.  Currently, I am responsible for advancing, maintaining and the pharmacy department’s current technology, with special emphasis on Pharmacy application software. 

#2009 – Achieving 90% Scanning Compliance in Nurse Charting Systems

September 12, 2025 – 10:00am – 11:00am
Pharmacist ACPE #014-999-09-040-L04-P
Pharmacy Tech ACPE #014-999-09-040-L04-P

Description

Maximizing patient safety through verification of the 5-Rights of Med Administration is the primary purpose for implementing nurse charting systems.  This session will focus on tips and tricks for both pharmacy and nursing for achieving 90% Med, IT, and IV order scanning compliance in nurse charting systems housewide.

Objectives

  • Explain order scanning compliance within nurse charting systems 
  • Restate the relationship between pharmacy and nurse charting systems for medication scanning
  • Identify possible opportunities for improvement within their own systems

Presenters

Jason Ashby, AHIS
Received PharmD degree from Purdue University 2000. Currently in IS support role within Ascension Health Information Services supporting the pharmacy informatics systems of four different facilities.
 
Don Julian RPh, St. Mary's Medical Center
Licensed pharmacist, BS'92 from Purdue University. Has held many roles related to pharmacy systems management. Currently the operations manager for St. Mary's Medical Center Pharmacy, Evansville, IN. 

#2108 – Closed Loop

September 11, 2025 – 3:15pm-4:15pm
Pharmacist ACPE #014-999-09-041-L04-P
Pharmacy Tech ACPE #014-999-09-041-L04-T

Description

Advanced closed loop functionality helps deliver higher levels of electronic integration between CPOE and Pharmacy systems for complex medication orders. With patient safety at the forefront, organizations can minimize transcription errors related to clinical interpretation of narrative instructions previously limited to free text entry within comment fields, as well as advanced tools available to enhance integration of high-risk medications and patient populations. This session will also focus on Duke University Hospital’s strategy for driving increased physician adoption through the application of advanced dosing decision support tools in specialized inpatients, including pediatrics and chronic organ failure. Participants will learn how to leverage advanced tools to streamline the integration and processing of multi-ingredient orders (IV additives) and multi-component orders (taper, joined, simultaneous, exclusive). Finally, participants will gain knowledge of how to navigate organizational and clinical challenges when implementing closed loop in your institution including: generating an atmosphere for adoption, surveying clinical workflow impacts and project buy-in through active engagement of pharmacists and nurses, engaging executive stakeholders and clinical champions to ensure success, and monitoring and measuring impacts of this change in your hospital.

Objectives

  • Explain interaction with physician and pharmacy order entry systems for medication closed loop.
  • Discuss, compare and contrast characteristics of advanced closed loop integration between physician and pharmacy order entry systems.
  • Describe how to apply basic project management and research principles to monitor and measure the organizational impact of a closed loop IT implementation and measurably reduce the likelihood of adverse drug events.

Presenter

Heidi Cozart R.Ph, Duke University Health System, Clinical Director, CPOE and IT Patient Safety
Heidi currently serves as the Clinical Director, CPOE and IT Patient Safety for Duke Medicine after coming to Duke University Hospital in 2001 as a Clinical Pharmacist in Informatics. She graduated from the University Of Iowa College Of Pharmacy in 1994 and began her career in informatics in 1996. Since then, she has worked in various aspects of the field of health care informatics, including corporate sales, project management, software design, and application deployment. While at Duke, she has been involved in clinical software design projects, ambulatory & pharmacy application deployment and patient safety research. She currently directs all aspects of the Duke University Hospital CPOE program, as well as computerized patient safety reporting and surveillance systems. Her primary career interests include quality improvement with a focus on IT interventions and leveraging the increasing volume of electronic healthcare data to measure the impacts of these IT interventions on patient care processes and outcomes. She completed the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 10X10 professional training program in 2006 from Oregon Health and Sciences University and received her Six Sigma Black Belt and Design for Six Sigma Certifications from North Carolina State University in 2007. She is currently working towards a Masters degree in Biomedical Informatics from Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland, Oregon.