Xin (Cindy) Shu

Her Story

Cindy Shu, Pharm.D., received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio on May 2019. She completed her PGY1 Pharmacy Residency at University of Wisconsin (UW) Health in Madison, Wisconsin. Cindy is currently a PGY2 Pharmacy Informatics Resident at UW Health and a member of the Section of Pharmacy Informatics and Technology’s Educational Steering Committee.

Overview of Facility/Health System

University of Wisconsin (UW) Health is the integrated health system of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Upper Midwest including seven hospitals and 85 clinic locations. The University of Wisconsin Hospital is a tertiary care teaching hospital with a decentralized, comprehensive inpatient pharmacy practice model. The pharmacy department actively participates in each of the hospital’s inpatient and outpatient services and conducts teaching and research of its own. The department manages 15 community pharmacies and includes a hospital and LTC consulting service, a medication therapy management service, a specialty care mail-order pharmacy, and a pharmacy hospice management service.

Significant Projects

Productivity monitoring tools provide a guide for pharmacy managers to evaluate staffing needs based on workload and volume metrics. As a PGY1 resident, Cindy worked on standardizing and implementing a modernized pharmacy productivity monitoring system, Worked Hours Per Units of Service (WHPUOS), focusing on inpatient operational pharmacy services at UW Health and the American Center, a community hospital in the UW health system.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health is launching a new Master of Science program in Clinical and Health Informatics (MS-CHI). As a PGY2, Cindy is currently developing a Pharmacy Data Analysis and Informatics course for this MS-CHI program. The course is 100% online and will launch Spring 2021 and obtain accreditation through Quality Matters.

Initial Involvement in ASHP

Cindy is a member of the Section of Pharmacy Informatics and Technology’s Educational Steering Committee.

Advice for Someone New to Your Specialty Area

1. Improve data literacy: Learn about how data is stored in your EHR system. Learn about relational databases. Learn about different data types. Being able to manage and analyze data effectively can set you apart and drive many decisions.
2. Become familiar with operations: Operation and informatics go hand in hand. They are critical to provide efficient and safe patient care and business processes.
3. Immerse yourself in the role as much as possible, surround yourself with positivity, and learn new skills broadly and without fear.

Why did you become involved in ASHP?

1. Networking opportunity is ever so broad. Pharmacy informatics is a small world. The friendships and professional relationships endure and go beyond the organizational activities.
2. Learning / Educational opportunity. Either learning from others through the involvement or using this platform as an educational opportunity to others interested in the area allows for tremendous advancement of the profession.
3. Similar to interoperability, the sharing of ideas and information between members makes me believe that working together to advance the profession is better than working siloed on your own.
   

How would you explain the value of ASHP to a friend or colleague?

1.  ASHP allows individuals’ voices to be heard.
2.  ASHP promotes members' personal and professional growth. 
3. ASHP values education and advancement of the profession.

What is the value of ASHP for the profession?

ASHP SOPIT establishes strength and unity in working toward common goals to advance medication use and health outcomes using health information and technology. Through ASHP, patients’ outcomes are improved, medication use system quality is higher, and the public is better informed.