HealthLeadersMedia.com: “Literature shows that when pharmacists are involved in care, the result is improved patient care, fewer adverse events, and reduced costs,” said Andrawis, speaking about Safe Practice 18. “But, in order for that full benefit to be realized, it’s really important that those pharmacists be given appropriate authority, and consequently that they continue to [...]

From the Pharmacy Technology Resources (PTR) blog: “Patient Centered Medical Home” (PCMH) – is likely to be the best opportunity for aligning physician and patient frustration, demonstrated models for improving care, and private and public payment systems to produce the most profound transformation of the health care system this far. Wait a second – what [...]

Advanceweb.com via SafetyNurse on Twitter: ”Pharmacists and nurses are essential professionals entrusted with medication safety. However, the medication delivery and other resources provided by pharmacy are not always well received by nursing, and vice versa. Nurses complain medications are not delivered on time. Gurses and Carayon (2007) noted that delays in getting medications from pharmacy as [...]

HealthcareITNews.com: “Physician groups in Phoenix are canceling their EMR contracts as a result of training, functionality or affordability issues. This is especially prevalent among smaller physician groups, the report says. ” – Software vendors take note. No matter how “cool” you think your product might be, people won’t use it if it is cumbersome and [...]

As usual there were a lot of things that happened during the week, and not all of it was pharmacy or technology related. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff I found interesting.

I’ve decided to do something a little bit different this week. Below is a presentation I had to give following the completion of our pharmacy remodel and the implementation of our pharmacy barcode system. More images of the implementation can be found here. Barcoding Solution In Pharmacy

HealthBlog: “Monday evening, I was invited to attend a dinner with my fellow panelists (Dr. David Kibbe, Ravi Sharma, Steve Adams, Martin Pellinat) and others to discuss the idea of clinical groupware.  If you are not familiar with that term, clinical groupware is described as a set of practice management, electronic medical record, decision support, [...]

Prior to the days of a clean room, most pharmacies had a designated area with one or move laminar flow hoods where they compounded intravenous (IV) medications. For lack of a better term this area was cleverly called the “IV Room”. The laminar flow hoods created a sterile work environment from which the pharmacy technicians [...]

Early morning hours on the weekend often provide me with a little quiet time to get some work done. Usually my wife and kids are still asleep and the day hasn’t really started yet. Last Saturday morning was one of those days. As I got up from my work to get another cup of coffee [...]

Florence dot com: “1. People who prescribe medications should use a system more sophisticated than the pine straw delivery guy’s [pen and paper] to communicate high-stakes drug information. 1,400 commonly prescribed drugs have names that look-alike or sound-alike. People can, and do, die when drug names are confused with one another. 2. Pharmacies should be able [...]