(Management Case Study) Leveraging Data Science to Transform Pharmacy Department Operations in an Academic Medical Center

Purpose: The typical pharmacy department in an academic medical center consists of complex processes that produce multiple data points. These data points are often difficult to manage and do not necessarily provide the information needed for the smooth running of pharmacy operations. This case study will describe the utilization of the different data science tools, specifically data visualization and analytics to transform data into information for leaders to use to make informed business decisions.

Methods: Starting in April 2021, an evaluation of the pharmacy department operations showed several opportunities that Data Science could positively affect. Several daily and monthly “dashboards” were distributed to leadership through e-mail as excel spreadsheets.  These dashboards contained several quality, operation, and patient safety based metrics. There were several different individuals responsible for running these reports and transcribing them manually onto these excel spreadsheets.

By working with executive leadership, we were able to prioritize which dashboards to work on first. We then scheduled meetings with (1) the operational owners of the dashboard, and (2) the analysts that currently processed the dashboards.  Once an understanding of the data source was established, the next step was to automate these processes by utilizing scheduled report distributions and/or direct access to the backend database to create a data stream for a Tableau connection.  Next came the data visualizations.  Using Tableau, each “dashboard” was converted into different data visualizations.  Once the champions approved the design of the dashboard, the dashboards were published and placed on a landing page for access/use.

Results:
Dashboards:
To date (May 2022), 10 Tableau dashboards have been published with 4 more being built.  There is approximately an hour of maintenance involved with these dashboards.  Prior to the publishing of the dashboards,  the processing of these 10 excel “dashboards” took a cumulative 24-36 hours as different analysts would have to run reports, transcribe these reports onto excel spreadsheets and then send these reports as e-mails to leadership.
Ad Hoc Reporting:
Historically, it took weeks, if not months for report requests to be completed.  With the implementation of Tableau Data Sources, the ability to be able to utilize these data sets to pull ad hoc data requests has saved a tremendous amount of time for leaders within the pharmacy department.  Tutorials have been given to various individuals within the Pharmacy department. 
Monthly Operating Report:
Monthly, an operating report is presented to executive leadership as a representation of the state of the pharmacy department.  This presentation utilizes many of the metrics that these dashboards contain.  Previously, it would take directors numerous hours to prepare these slide decks.  Today, the slides are standardized and it takes the directors considerably less time to prepare each month.

Conclusion: By using data science tools, namely data analytics and visualization over the last 13 months, we have transformed how data is processed, analyzed and visualized within the Pharmacy Department.  It is now easier to communicate and understand how we are performing on quality, operation, and patient safety metrics and where opportunities for improvement may exist. We continue to use these data science tools and methodology for any new projects related to pharmacy operations.