You know what’s missing in healthcare? Pharmacists that write code and work on application development, that’s what’s missing. It’s the only way to ensure that applications have the right look, feel and functionality. Who knows better than a pharmacist, or pharmacy technician, how a pharmacy application should behave? No one, that’s who. Trying to explain healthcare workflow to a non-healthcare person is like trying to explain calculus to a dog; not that I think people outside healthcare are dogs. It’s just a metaphor.
Anyone can learn to code the basics, much the same way anyone can learn the basics of being a pharmacist. I could teach an average sixth grader how to perform the basic functions of a pharmacist; no lie. Of course things get a lot more complicated once you get past the basics, and that’s when you need people with more experience, expertise and wisdom.
I’ve dabbled in “programming” here and there, mostly out of necessity. At one time or another I’ve taught myself to code with visual basic, C# and some scripting languages like Javascript, PERL, and HTML. I also spent a couple years learning the ins and outs of database design and writing queries. But I was never all that good at it. I could do the basics, but it was neither my profession nor passion.
I wrote a couple of small apps to help me do my job – desktop and web-based – and built some databases to handle pharmacokinetic tracking and pharmacist interventions. Everything worked, but they were nothing that would have wowed anyone. What I needed was someone with a lot more experience to take those applications and turn them into something spectacular. That’s where having a real “programmer” would come in handy; someone with years of experience, expertise and wisdom.
However, back to my original point. Healthcare needs pharmacists that know how to write code to jump start the development process and drive things forward when things stall. Sometimes pictures and words simply don’t work.
Just an opinion. Take it for what it worth.
