Ambulatory Antimicrobial Stewardship Clinical Pharmacy Specialist

Job Description Summary

The Clinical Pharmacy Specialist for Ambulatory/Outpatient Antimicrobial Stewardship provides dedicated pharmacy leadership for the development, implementation, monitoring, and continuous improvement of antimicrobial stewardship across the MUSC Health ambulatory network. The specialist advances safe, effective, evidence-based, and cost-conscious antimicrobial prescribing through prescribing surveillance, clinician feedback, guideline development, education, electronic health record interventions, and performance reporting.



The specialist functions as part of the MUSC Health System Antimicrobial Stewardship pharmacy team, collaborates with physicians, nursing, quality, information solutions, infection prevention, microbiology, population health, and operational leaders, and participates in cross-coverage and rotating staffing shifts as assigned. 

Entity

Medical University Hospital Authority (MUHA)

Worker Type

Employee

Worker Sub-Type​

Regular

Cost Center

CC000603 CHS - Pharmacy - Administration Quality and Safety Services (Main)

Pay Rate Type

Salary

Pay Grade

Health-34

Scheduled Weekly Hours

40

Work Shift

Day (United States of America)

Job Description

Job Responsibility

Clinical Pharmacy Services - 40%

• Act as a role model and mentor to clinical pharmacists for clinical initiatives.

• Aid in administration of medications in accordance with legal regulations and Medical Center policies, as applicable.

• Applies pharmacokinetic principles to achieve efficacious, safe, and economical pharmacotherapeutic regimens.

• Attends meetings related to disease state-related projects and clinical services on a local, state, and national level.

• Chart review and cross-cover other patient services typically covered by another clinical specialist and/or clinical pharmacist as needed to ensure continuity of care for all patients.

• Collaborate with clinical specialists to alleviate medication related issues for patient care. Competently and willingly perform the functions of a clinical specialist when needed.

• Collaborate with clinical pharmacists to alleviate medication related issues for patient care. Competently and willingly perform the functions of a clinical pharmacist when needed.

• Collect all pertinent information to understand the patient’s medical/medication history

• Coordinate therapeutic drug monitoring programs for your patient population as applicable.

• Coordinate with other clinical specialists, schedulers, referring providers, and nurses as applicable to initiate treatment, follow-up, and monitoring plans

• Counsels patients and/or caregivers as to proper drug administration, potential adverse reactions, and medication storage

• Develops educational and care plans for patients to assist them in reaching treatment goals

• Develops patient care plans in concert with the medical and pharmacy team

• Document all interventions in the medical record or other designated software per MUSC Policies and Best Practice.

• Evaluate patients drug regimen for efficacy, side effects, supportive care needs, drug-interactions, contraindications, and warnings, and identify the need for any dose adjustments, or therapeutic alternatives.

• Exhibit and utilize specialized knowledge of therapeutic agents, administration, symptom management, and supportive care.

• Identify drug-related problems such as complications resulting from drug therapy (ineffective therapy, allergic reactions, drug interactions, and adverse drug reactions). Develop actionable steps to rectify these problems.

• If an on-call program exists in your area of practice, participate in the on-call program on a rotational basis as scheduled.

• In collaboration with the medical team, participate in transitions of care planning to ensure an uninterrupted continuum of care.

• Interprets laboratory and other patient-specific data to develop treatment plans and monitor response to therapy

• Maintain competence in specialty area and sub-specialty area. If board certified in primary specialty area, maintain certification. If seeking certification, ascertain within one year of employment, or complete equivalent competencies to demonstrate knowledge, skills, and abilities at the level of a clinical specialist. Competencies can be CE credits in area of specialty, or other approved educational courses as agreed upon with supervisor

• Make or recommend customized changes to patient treatment goals based on individual patient outcomes

• Make verbal or written recommendations in a clear, succinct, and appropriate manner.

• Monitor patients while receiving and after treatment for toxicities, efficacy, organ dysfunction, compliance and recommend dose adjustments if needed.

• Participates as an integral member of the assigned patient care team. Assists with therapeutic decisions such as drug product selection, drug dosing, and therapeutic drug monitoring for clinic and/or pharmacy patients

• Participates in other identified clinical initiatives that are identified throughout the year

• Provide medication-related interventions focused on selecting the safest and most appropriate therapy that offers the best potential outcomes for patients while being mindful of financial impact.

• Provide patient specific medication review to detect significant drug-drug, drug-laboratory, drug-food, and drug-disease interactions. Make recommendations to avoid and/or account for interactions.

• Provides clinical pharmacy services to a consult service, including daily rounds, if feasible

• Recommend appropriate care setting (inpatient or outpatient) based on patient therapy, potential side-effects, monitoring, and supportive care needs. Participate in interdisciplinary patient care. May be clinic, rounds, sit-down rounds, work groups, team meetings, etc.

• Recommends therapy or alternative approaches based on interpretation of relevant medical literature and clinical experience

• Respond to therapeutic queries posed by physicians and other health care providers.

• Review patient medical records for necessary information to ensure the safety and optimization of medication treatment.

• Serves as the MUSC contact for anti-infective formulary decisions

• Serves as a pharmacy liaison to the microbiology lab and infection control group

Distributive Pharmacy Services - 5%

• Assist with medication order entry and verification when needed to support patient care.  Enters medication orders into the EHR within scope of practice and in alignment with prescribing policies

• Complies with department policies and procedures on procurement.

• Contacts prescriber for clarification if prescription requires correction or verification and documents interventions or resolution on prescription and/or in the EMR

• Help to solve operational problems in area of practice

• Perform supervisory functions by providing immediate and direct supervision of supportive personnel assigned to his/her area and participate in the annual performance review process for these staff members.

• Take responsibility for conduct and success of shift. Gives report and pass off any important and relevant information to oncoming shift.

Scholarship - 10%

• Assists and supports formulary reviews, evaluations, and assessments to the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee in the area of his/her expertise

• Attend external healthcare organizations to represent MUSC and bring back major insights to share and implement 

• Collect data related to ambulatory anti-infective prescribing and utilization and report to pharmacy, physicians, hospital leadership, and state and national authorities, as applicable

• Contribute towards area-specific metrics (quality, clinical, productivity, or financial)

• Encourage provider involvement in decisions about practices and policies that impact their work, such as CPA protocols

• Participate in other committees/meetings as applicable to your practice area. Examples include [Primary Care Meetings, Epic Ambulatory Meetings, Preceptor Meetings, Staff Meetings, Quality and Outcomes meetings, patient safety meetings, Pharmacy & Therapeutics meetings, etc.]

• Participates in scholarly activity and keeps department informed of developments in area of expertise

• Proactively review, evaluate, and interpret relevant scientific literature as a means of providing patient-and-population-specific drug information to health care professionals and patients.

• Provide prescribers with published/available evidence to support medication-related treatment recommendations

• Publish innovative practices or insights as a positive representation of MUSC.

• Retrieves, analyzes, evaluates, and interprets scientific literature as a means of providing audience specific drug information.

Patient Experience - 5%

• Acknowledges patients as they enter the pharmacy or other area of work; takes the initiative to be the one that serves them

• Be approachable when Care Team Members need help (e.g. finding a patient's medications, working insurance claims).

Development, Training and Education - 15%

• Actively participates as a presenter in departmental staff development programs

• Attends hospital, medical, and pharmacy department meetings and conferences

• Create and deliver in-service education to physicians, nursing, and/or pharmacy in-service education. Topics may include, but are not limited to, new medications, guideline updates, and policy changes.

• Facilitate or actively participate in educational activities such as journal clubs, topic discussions, grand rounds, and continuing education sessions to stay current, expand knowledge, and maintain clinical acumen.

• Mentor and provide immediate feedback to clinical pharmacists for clinical initiatives and coordination of pharmacists' activities in their area of practice.

• Orients and trains all new personnel in assigned areas, as applicable

• Participate in annual performance evaluations of peers and other staff members to enhance continued staff development.

• Participate in hiring and onboarding of new employees, including but not limited to, technicians, interns, and pharmacists

• Participate in training and precepting of pharmacy students, interns, and residents

• Present updated clinical information or initiatives at pharmacy department meetings.

• Pursue continuous professional development.

• Serve as a preceptor for resident research projects and medication use evaluations.

• Serves as the primary educational resource for therapeutic area related topics

• Support our residency programs by submitting ideas for projects and medication use evaluations.

Systems of Care - 20%

• Adheres to all drug use policy and formulary decisions of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee

• Assume primary responsibility for the conduct of medication evaluations, prescribing trends, overall utilization, etc. Report out results to pharmacy, physicians, hospital leadership, and state and national authorities, as applicable.

• Collaborate with health care providers and relevant policy-making committees to establish policies or workflows to implement improvements to improve drug therapy outcomes and overall quality of patient care.

• Create and actively participate in cost-savings initiatives related to medication use.

• Develop pharmacy programs and systems for providing optimal clinical pharmacy care.

• Develop systems which optimize use of informatics and artificial intelligence (AI), as appropriate, in the various steps of the medication-use process. 

• Develops and achieves annual quality and financial goals for therapeutic area and/or team.

• Document medication errors or patient safety concerns in SHIELD.

• Ensures compliance with therapeutic area-related clinical pathways and guidelines

• Establishes processes to evaluate the cost effectiveness and quality of service-related outcomes.

• Evaluates and documents the impact of clinical pharmacy services upon patient care outcomes (clinical outcomes, quality of life outcomes, and cost outcomes).

• Identifies therapeutic categories or individual therapeutic agents warranting medication use evaluations.

• Identifies, develops, and implements the necessary infrastructure, procedures, and relationships for a successful therapeutic area-related team

• Identify concerns or area of opportunity for process improvement, quality, or gaps in practice.

• Participate in department programs and initiatives.

• Participate in Just Culture Reviews and identify any needed operational or informatics changes to create a safer practice for our patients

• Participate in reporting of adverse drug reactions

• Participate in the strategic response to medication shortages.

• Serves as a liaison between the clinical service team and/or ICCE physician and nurse leadership and the Pharmacy ICCE

• Works with other health care providers and relevant policy-making committees to establish policy or implement improvements that improve drug therapy outcomes (efficacy, safety, cost effectiveness) and overall quality of patient care.

Other Duties as Assigned - 5%

• Act as a role model and mentor to pharmacy technicians, interns, and students for operational and/or clinical initiatives

• Adheres to policies and procedures including but limited to the following: Tardiness, Absenteeism, HIPAA, Outpatient Prescription Sales, Hazardous medication policies, Pneumatic Tube System Utilization, and Dress Code Policies.

• Assist and/or process pharmacy recalls as directed by supervisor.

• Attend required in-services and meetings, such as the departmental staff meetings.

• Communicates effectively with other team members as needed (e.g. schedule changes, prior authorizations, on orders, audits).

• Complete all tasks and assignments in a timely manner and with a spirit of cooperativeness.

• Comply with all departmental policy and procedures

• Enforce all pharmaceutical care programs integrated throughout MUSC

• Intervene to handle difficult, tense, or complex situations when appropriate, confront/advise personnel when appropriate, and notify coordinator when appropriate.

• Maintains mature and professional interactions with all Care Team Members.

• Performs other related duties as assigned

• Provides pharmacist support to other departmental areas as needed.

• Set example for other pharmacists and technicians in work quality, efficiency, productivity, and personal conduct standards.

Additional Job Description

Required Education and/or Experience:

Clinical residency with a minimum of two years of clinical pharmacy practice experience required, (or)Minimum five years of advanced clinical pharmacy practice experience in a hospital setting

Preferred Education and/or Experience: Pharm D. from an ACPE accredited School of Pharmacy PGY-2 Infectious Disease or antimicrobial stewardship certification.

Required Licensure, Certifications, Registrations: Licensed as a Registered Pharmacist by the South Carolina Board of Pharmacy. Current Basic Life Support (BLS) required, either a certification from an American Heart Association (AHA) BLS for Healthcare Providers (or AHA recognized equivalent) or an American Red Cross CPR/AED for Professional Rescuer and Healthcare Provider.

If you like working with energetic enthusiastic individuals, you will enjoy your career with us!

The Medical University of South Carolina is an Equal Opportunity Employer. MUSC does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion or belief, age, sex, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, protected veteran status, family or parental status, or any other status protected by state laws and/or federal regulations. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration for employment based upon applicable qualifications, merit and business need.

Medical University of South Carolina participates in the federal E-Verify program to confirm the identity and employment authorization of all newly hired employees. For further information about the E-Verify program, please click here: http://www.uscis.gov/e-verify/employees