PharmaSmart enhances blood-pressure diagnostic, health IT kiosks

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — PharmaSmart International on Monday announced new advances in its blood-pressure diagnostic and health IT kiosks, including Internet connectivity, patient data tracking and patient health record integration.

“PharmaSmart now combines a clinically validated diagnostic tool with an easy-to-use health IT platform to offer pharmacists meaningful tools for better patient care,” stated Ashton Maaraba, PharmaSmart GM and SVP. “This represents a new era of clinical pharmacy services.”

Retail pharmacies offering the program enroll patients into PharmaSmart’s integrated patient management platform, Maaraba said. Once enrolled, the pharmacist uses the integrated personal health record functionality to provide therapeutic counseling and interventions as required.

“In addition to our suite of pharmacist and patient tools, our IT platform enables robust program reporting,” Maaraba said. “For example, in 2010, our client networks captured nearly 1.5 million blood-pressure readings that were hypertensive. This is a huge, untapped opportunity for pharmacist intervention.”

Enrolled patients also have access to a retail-branded personal health record that stores and organizes their diagnostic readings, the company added. PharmaSmart kiosks and Web services are confidential and HIPAA-compliant.