Digitizing Pharmacy Operations and Care with Nguyen Martin, Clinical Pharmacist at MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
Digitizing Pharmacy Operations and Care with Nguyen Martin, Clinical Pharmacist at MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Saul Marquez:
Welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket. This program is made possible by the sponsors of Reach, including HP, Microsoft, Smooth Podcasting, and listeners like you. Reach is a global nonprofit social impact organization whose mission is to create better health care experiences for both providers and patients. Reach is focused on sustainable, large-scale improvements in the delivery of care and in the health journey of all people. Reach advocates public health thought leadership, education, and innovation. Be sure to share this podcast and visit them at www.reachtl.org. That’s www.reachtl.org.
Saul Marquez:
Welcome back to the podcast everyone, Saul Marquez here today. I have the privilege of hosting Dr. Nguyen Martin. She is a Clinical Pharmacist at Franklin Square Hospital, which is part of the MedStar Health System, and it’s located in Baltimore, Maryland. She received her PharmD degree from the Notre Dame University of Maryland in 2014. Previously, she was a pharmacy manager in the retail Walgreens pharmacy. She’s an adjunct clinical faculty in the Department of Clinical and Administrative Science at Notre Dame School of Pharmacy. She also participates in the Reach KOL Faculty program. Recently, she was selected to be a lead pharmacist to run COVID-19 vaccinations at Franklin Square Hospital. As a pharmacist, she mentors students and new graduates and aims to inspire them to play an active role in the growth of the pharmacy profession. Dr. Martin is driven to help her patients achieve the best possible outcomes and passionate about the health care team working together to ensure the highest quality and safety for all of us. So, such a privilege to have you here. Dr. Nguyen, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Thank you so much for having me. It’s my pleasure.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah. And, you know, so talk about an amazing time to be doing what you’re doing. Dr. Martin is just I mean, we need you so much right now with just the difficulties with the virus and everything. We’re going to dig into the work that you’re doing there. But I love to really find out more about you. Tell us what inspires your work in health care.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Yes, it is a great question that everybody asked me when I decide to go into pharmacy career instead of the health care providers. So being a pharmacist to me is more than dispense medication to patients. Being a pharmacist means that I can ensure medication and use a properly to achieve optimal patient outcomes. So I’m lucky enough to have a profession that gives me the knowledge, ability to discuss medications with my patients and the families. I enjoy the one-on-one conversations I have with my patients in their rooms on a daily basis. Admission to the hospital is a very stressful time for the patient and the family members and a lot of the stress come from not understanding the treatment. Talk to you on my self. I just gave birth to my son back in 2019 and despite that, my husband and I are both health care providers. But because it was the first time I was admitted to the hospital, stressful was an understatement. And just imagine nonmedical patients going to the same thing. It is scary, especially during the pandemic when the hospital doesn’t allow any visitor or only one visitor per patient. They don’t have a support system with them. So as a pharmacist, my goal is to help decrease some of the stress of the hospitalization by plan, the treatment regimens, potential side effects, desired outcomes, what to expect throughout the hospitalization in terms of medication therapy. So this allows me to make a difference in the lives of others and see the impact of my work is keeps me going and inspires me to do more every day.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, that’s so great. You’re right. And when you get hospitalized, it’s stressful. And I mean, here you are. You are a health care provider and so is your husband, you and your husband, Dr. Martin, who we had on the podcast. Both of you guys are super talented. I mean, just this health care insider’s right. And it’s still stressful. Imagine all of the people that are not and so such an important role that you play.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
It’s very important. Pharmacists are underutilized in that part. A lot of team member doesn’t know that we can play impact for the providers and nurses, we can give insight on drug interactions, I.V. compatibility. It’s just a lot that we can play.
Saul Marquez:
And yeah, no, I would totally agree. And so talk to us a little bit about that value you guys are providing and within the realm of like the COVID vaccines and everything, what are you guys doing to help the system kind of do better in distributing and making people feel comfortable?
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Yeah, that’s a good question. That’s why we have pharmacists running the clinics because we are experts in not only in this patient, but we put in, like, just interaction a lot of patients come in to vaccinate and they bring a list of medication, the like. OK, I’m on this medication. Will I have a reaction to the drug? So we are there to answer that question. I have this yesterday I was at the clinic is and this gentleman brings a page of different medication I had to look through. And see, but all of them are not interact with the vaccine unless you are allergic to the MMR vaccine before. So that’s why we are there to drive the clinic.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah. And so as you think about the road that you take and how you work with physicians and really the entire care team, what would you say the pharmacist does to really help provide better outcomes and in a unique way?
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Yeah, well, pharmacists is all about improved outcomes. And I’m grateful for the collaboration between the physician, the pharmacist at my hospital, Franklin and Able, the pharmacists who have medication management to have patients to better understand medication, adherence, clinical outcome, any dangerous interaction between medications, IV compatibility. A lot of patients only have one abscess. So we have to see if Zosyn Vancomycin can run together versus lactate ring or something like that. Also, medication reconciliation is one of the biggest things in the hospital. This is one of the areas that pharmacies underutilized. So part of my day, I have to do a medication discrepancy during this mission hospital stay or even one patient discharge. So to give you an idea of what my day is like, every morning before I even start my day, I usually run several reports of antibiotics, IV to people, medication, warfarin, vancomycin, USSI, etc. Because of the collaboration that we have as a hospital, I’m able to manage this medication and take it from the providers and I’ll find out if the patient is going home. If a patient discharged, I want to make sure the patient understands the medication that they go home with and cosi effects. If they can afford the medication, do they know how to inject some medication like Lovenox or insulin or do they have anybody help them to give the injection? And if patients stay in the hospital, I want to make sure there are any drugs that start overnight.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
And I will make sure the drug interaction, can I de-escalate any antibodies because when a patient comes into the hospital, we saw them with broad-spectrum antibiotics and we can go back and look at the sensitivity. Then I can make any recommendation to the providers. We can change the medication to more specific to what the pseudomonas or MRSA gram-negative and positive as the strep. So I also check on the patient. We know whether they are improved or not because they are so, so many drugs that dose by renal function and one of them will with drug is Remdesivir for treating COVID. So we have to monitor that. We know every day we have to monitor their liver function. We have to monitor that. I know they have potential increased risk of bleeding. So there’s a lot going to monitor and we have an opportunity to contribute to help with all the COVID medication, not just Remdesivir.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, that’s super interesting. And we did a podcast not too long ago just kind of diving into the landscape, like taking a retrospective look from the beginning of when the pandemic happened in February, March to now, and just how providers have tried so many different things and like and like the boom and bust of different drugs. And I’m sure that was driving you guys crazy. All right. You’re the new one.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Yeah.
Saul Marquez:
And so, yeah, it’s a critical role that pharmacists play, especially now as we’re figuring out how to best suppress inflammation and find ways to take care of our patients in such a big need. So talk to us a little bit about setbacks. You know, I feel like we learn more from our setbacks and successes. So do you have one in mind that you want to share that maybe you made the most learnings from?
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Yeah, one of the setbacks, I would say technology. Well, technology is one of the big impactful healthcare systems is can also be a setback. So by corporate or I.T., so forth, then remote work. Before the pandemic I was selected to be one of the pharmacists pilot the remote work. So this would definitely be the best way for me to forward and create a work and life balanced lifestyle, however, because of — and the administration, we have to go through layers and layers to get approved. Therefore, the process was delayed for quite a long time. So we started it was supposed to be running back in February and we did not get the run again until like October last year. So it took a while. Finally, we are up and running recently, so I’m happy to report that we do an amazing job and productivity has increased tremendously, and no more delayed patient care, because when I come home, my focus is to verify orders so that we get the medication to the patient wthout any distraction and things like that when I’m in the central pharmacy. But it’s a setback. But the key in this is whenever we implement a new project, new idea, new innovative technology is expected to get delayed because we have corporate we have I.T., we have a ton of people looking for us.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Maybe they hesitated to start new projects, new technology. But I learned if we keep persisting with the win on the projects that we looking at the end it will work out, it’s also a learning curve for everybody who works hard towards their goal to do what they need to do to get the project done. And then it’s going to turn out at the end.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, it always ends up working out, but the timelines are long.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
It is long.
Saul Marquez:
Always longer than you expect them to.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
In fact, it took two years for it to launch and then after it’s about to launch, the pandemic happened and then it’s just a whole mess. But, my God, we finally did it.
Saul Marquez:
Congratulations.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Thank you. And finally, there is finally there. And I mean, 10 years ago, I would not imagine pharmacists will able to work from home like I’m thinking like nine to five jobs.
Saul Marquez:
Crazy, right?
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Every day. But it’s crazy technology what they can do to your pharmacy and health care overall.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah. And so all of the medications being administered or recommended are pushed to you through an electronic record. You’re reviewing them and then you send back your recommendations to the pharmacy and the nurses and the physicians. Right?
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Yes.
Saul Marquez:
Amazing. And you’re doing it all from your house.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
All from my house.
Saul Marquez:
Just amazing.
I can verify any IV medication the technician would take picture. So when they make an IV, they take pictures of different ingredients, how much they inject and how much they take it out on fluid from the vial and how much they inject into the medication and how much they draw it out and check into the back. The IV bag. And I get see every step of the way and I can approve them. Or if there’s anything wrong, I can only reach back and send it back to them and have them be to it. I mean, I’m grateful for the technology.
Saul Marquez:
So you think about the capability and I mean, just incredible. You know, the other day I was having a chat with one of the Chief Technology Officers of a research and data analytics company. And he told me that they’ve actually been able to successfully get two FDA approvals using a so when they do these pharma trials, the clinical trials there, especially for really like significantly ill patients with crazy cancers like brain cancer, there’s a control group that is placebo. You know, the placebo control group? They were able to do placebo control groups with data. So they didn’t actually have the patients enrolled.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Oh, wow.
Saul Marquez:
I know. And so things like that. And literally two FDA approvals now, you being able to really kind of do air traffic control at the hospital with the pharmacist’s function. I mean, the transformation is here. We’re doing it.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Yeah, we are. Yeah. I mean, at home I focus on it. Just verified the order to get the order done and need another pharmacist at the Central to do all this stuff like phone calls, anything that they need or notice that neat thing like that. So I’m free of a lot of tasks.
Saul Marquez:
Amazing. Well, I’ll tell you, that’s so fantastic. I’m glad you shared that. I didn’t even know that was possible today.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do not know either, but two years ago we worked on it and we work towards the goal. And it’s happened. I mean, not only so right now, I’m pilot for, two of us are pilots for the program, but if it’s success and it will be successful so we can roll out to all the other pharmacies. So the morning pharmacists, overnight pharmacists, especially opening pharmacies. So overnight is not going to be that busy. So they can just work from home.
Saul Marquez:
Amazing. And then so so I think about the capabilities that arise from this. You know, you think about those remote areas in the globe that don’t have the expertise that could use it. I mean, it just opens up the access question in a big way. What are your thoughts?
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Oh, my God, that’s what we are going towards. We are going towards where pharmacists can be at home. And if I order throughout mass start, because right now I think Walgreens does that now. But they have a base now, pharmacist five for the whole state. So that’s what we try to do. One pharmacist, two pharmacists stay home and verify all the orders from different — Franklin, Union, and more. All the hospital. We are able to verify everything at their own home.
Saul Marquez:
Just amazing. The future’s bright. We’ve made some amazing leaps through COVID.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Yes, we did.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
It’s been challenging. But despite the challenges, we’ve made some great strides. So thank you for sharing that setback and the gem of the progress that’s been made through that. Yeah. What would you say you’re most excited about, Dr. Martin?
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
The vaccine? It’s incredible how fast we got this vaccine approved. I mean, back then, the day and take years is one of that vaccine to get approved. And we did it within a year. And as a pharmacist, I’m able to have. To vaccinate patients, how incredible is that, you know, since the start of a new coronavirus outbreak in December, we not able to see our family members, our friends. nd it is almost restriction in our society right now. And if we can get this vaccine out and vaccinate the massive majority of people and get back to normal or somewhat normal, that’s the most exciting for me today.
Saul Marquez:
Super exciting and hopeful. And yes. And we were talking about at the beginning of the podcast like I said, it’s the new year but it’s the same thing for people. If you’re listening to this and there’s an opportunity for you to get the vaccine, get it. Dr. Martin gotten into her husband’s gotten it. My wife has gotten it. I’m signing up. And so get the vaccine. It’s the right thing to do and it’s the way that we get to a better tomorrow. Yep. So, Dr. Martin, we’re here at the end. We’re about to conclude. But before we do, why don’t you just share a closing thought with our audience and also the best place that they could get in touch with you or learn more about your work. That would be awesome.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Yes. Thank you. So like I was mentioned before on this under ULI, and I just want to emphasize how important it is to incorporate pharmacists into the health care team. And I’m super glad and honored that in my hospital, but also this program has given me an awesome opportunity to collaborate with all the health care providers to improve patient care. And at the end of the day, patient care is the most important in our health care system. And the best way I think to connect with me will get a hold of me by email, which is nhnguyen2709@gmail.com.
Saul Marquez:
Outstanding. Well, thank you for that. And folks will provide the email inside of the show notes as well as a full transcript and really just any links of resources we mentioned during the podcast. Dr. Martin, just want to say thank you for just being with us and sharing your work and also all the work that you do on the front lines and from home to help us through the pandemic. So thanks again for being with us.
Dr. Nguyen Martin:
Thank you, Saul. Thank you so much.
Saul Marquez:
This program is made possible by the sponsors of Reach, including HP, Microsoft, Smooth Podcasting, and listeners like you. Reach is a global nonprofit social impact organization whose mission is to create better health care experiences for both providers and patients. Reach is focused on sustainable, large-scale improvements in the delivery of care and in the health journey of all people. Reach advocates, public health, thought, leadership, education, and innovation. Be sure to share this podcast and visit them at www.reachtl.org. That’s www.reachtl.org.
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