Tyler Nichols, PharmD, BCPS, FISMP
Tyler received his Doctor of Pharmacy Degree from Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Albany, NY in 2010. After completing his degree, he started his pharmacy career at a small community hospital in Albany where he had his first experiences as a Medication Safety Officer. Working with interdisciplinary teams he worked to review medication events and published best practices to identify systems solutions to help enhance healthcare workers’ ability to provide safe care to their patients. He also helped provide education to nursing and provider staff on multiple topics, including Just Culture and the importance of reporting medication events.
After 7 years Tyler moved on to work at Albany Medical Center, a large, academic, tertiary care center that serves a vast population of adult, pediatric and neonatal patients, ranging across much of Upstate New York. The hospital included both a level 1 trauma center that sees more traumas than any other hospital in New York, surgical, medical, and cardiac intensive care units, a level 3 neonatal intensive care unit, in addition to several other specialty care areas. There he took on a role as a pharmacy supervisor primarily overseeing sterile product compounding operations, including hazardous and nuclear pharmacy. During his time at Albany Medical Center, he took on multiple responsibilities including participating in safe medication use, dietary, USP 800 preparation, and nursing council workgroups. As Albany Medical Center transitioned to The Albany Med Health System, Tyler helped to coordinate and oversee system level integration of multiple sites to ensure compliance with USP regulatory guidelines at both inpatient and outpatient sites. He also took a leading role in monitoring and developing solutions to overcome ongoing product and materials shortages.
From all his roles, Tyler developed a strong sense for medication safety and was an advocate for the promotion of a Just Culture in healthcare to help advance safety for staff and patients alike. He developed a systems-based view for evaluating events, reviewing new products and procedures, and practice changes to identify potential risks and develop mitigation strategies. He is also extremely knowledgeable about acute care pharmacy and hospital operations and various workflow technologies including logistics software/hardware, automated dispensing cabinets, and various IV workflow technologies. One example was working with an IV workflow technology vendor to develop a route-based rule to prompt specific compounding directions for medications given via the intraventricular route to ensure correct preparation of these products.
As the ISMP International Medication Safety Management Fellow, Tyler hopes to utilize his experience and knowledge to critically evaluate medication events, best practices, safe management of product shortages, and new products and technologies to advance safety initiatives on a larger scale. He hopes to also use his time as an ISMP International fellow to gain a broader perspective on global safety initiatives and work closely with subject matter experts across multiple organizations and disciplines to improve his ability to delivery safe and effective care.
