Empowered Patient Podcast Role of AI and Pharmacists in Medication Therapy Optimization with Dr. Steve Goldberg DecisionRx and Jamie Wilkey
Dr. Steve Goldberg, physician and Senior Clinical Advisor at DecisionRx, and Dr. Jamie Wilkey, pharmacist and expert on medication therapy optimization, explain that medications are the fourth leading cause of death in the country. They emphasize the need to consider genetic information and pharmacogenomics to design personalized medication plans to improve health outcomes. The DecisionRx solution is integrated into the pharmacist's workflow to improve medication safety, reduce avoidable costs, and enhance communication with providers, pharmacists, and patients.
Steven explains, "Our goal is to help people get more benefits from the medications that they use. A couple of starting facts. The US spends about $500 billion-plus a year on medication, and sadly, there are hundreds of thousands of ER visits, hospitalizations, and deaths that occur to people attributable to medications. There are a number of reasons for it, but relative to what we do, it is often triggered by people having genetics that make them not do well with particular medication. It’s often the regimen that they’re on has too many drugs, and that creates a problem. Finally, and potentially most importantly, they’re not taking the time or not given the time to have their medication regimen carefully reviewed by a well-trained pharmacist to help organize things for the best outcomes. And best outcomes, reduce health risks, control chronic disease, and provide treatment."
Jamie elaborates, "We also consider the genetics of people taking their medication, which has been overlooked significantly in the past. Specifically, the way our body metabolizes medication is so different based on ethnicity, background, and gender, and you can’t just tell by looking at a person how they’ll metabolize medication. We can finally understand what medication is likely to work for a person, which is unlikely to work, and what is probably going to give them a lot of terrible adverse reactions before the patient has to go home and try it."
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