RUHS Clinical Pharmacy Residency Program Earns Accreditation

From Riverside University Health System: An RUHS residency program that trains post-graduate pharmacists to work directly with doctors and patients in complex healthcare environments has earned its six-year accreditation from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, hospital officials announced this week.

RUHS Medical Center—the county’s oldest and largest teaching hospital—launched its Clinical Pharmacy Residency in 2016. The program will support six fulltime residents as it builds out over the next two to three years. In addition, the pharmacy department’s academic program provides training to dozens of pharmacy students annually.

Davalyn Tidwell, assistant pharmacy director at RUHS Medical Center, said clinical pharmacists don’t stay behind counters filling prescriptions like their traditional counterparts. Instead, she said clinical pharmacists act as physician extenders who are actively engaged in the treatment of stroke, reducing sepsis deaths, improving diabetes management, lowering hospital acquired infections and helping to coordinate patient care.

Clinical pharmacists at the Medical Center are embedded in departments throughout the hospital and work closely with hepatitis C patients to administer powerful drugs that can cure a debilitating and potentially deadly disease, Tidwell said.

Christina Qi, a clinical pharmacist in RUHS Medical Center’s emergency department and the residency program director said opportunities are expanding for physician extenders like clinical pharmacists, who find satisfaction working as a member of an integrated healthcare team.

“We are part of a very progressive organization that serves a very diverse patient population,” Qi said. “We are providing training in a collegiate and collaborative environment while enhancing patient safety by ensuring the medications prescribed contribute to the best possible outcomes.

“The demand and the need for trained clinical pharmacists is only going to grow,” Qi said.

The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, an accreditation body, represents more than 44,000 pharmacists, student pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who practice in hospitals, health maintenance organizations, long-term care facilities, home care and other areas of healthcare.

ABOUT Riverside University Health System:

RUHS is one of Riverside County’s largest employers with more than 6,000 health and behavioral health professionals, and a direct annual economic impact of $1.6 billion. RUHS is the bedrock of medical education in Riverside County, annually training more than 800 resident physicians and medical students, clinical pharmacists, physician assistants and more than 1,000 nursing students.

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