Month: October 2009

LIJ Health System to subsidize EMR deployment in New York

by

InformationWeek Healthcare: “The rollout is believed to be the nation’s largest EMR deployment to date, said North Shore LIJ CIO John Bosco. The health system serves five million people in the New York metro area, operating 14 hospitals, 18 long-term care facilities, five home-health agencies, dozens of outpatient centers, and a hospice network. Under the … Read more

Thoughts on creating a BCMA cross reference file

by

zebra_barcode2Our facility is gearing up to implement bar code medication administration (BCMA) in February 2010. Part of getting ready is making sure that all the medications dispensed from the pharmacy are bar code ready. If the medication isn’t bar coded or won’t scan, then it won’t do the nurse much good at the bedside. We’re in pretty good shape secondary to our carousel install in February of 2008. Everything that gets stored in the carousel is already bar coded. I had hoped that the file stored in our AutoPharm, i.e. carousel, cross reference file could simply be dropped into our Siemens Pharmacy cross reference file, but that would have been too easy. Siemens refused to play nicely with the data.

Read more

Getting pharmacists to lay down their 3×5 cards

by

The decentralized pharmacy model brings with it the opportunity for pharmacists to be an integral part of the medical team. This includes following teams of healthcare provides, physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, etc, on morning rounds. And like all good little pharmacists we like to be prepared with as much information as possible about the patient. Several methods for collecting data have been developed over the years, including the all time favorite; the 3×5 index card. The problem with this system is obvious; it’s prone to human error. Taking information from one source and transcribing it somewhere else simply increases the chance for error. In addition, the information may be inaccurate as things can change rapidly with hospitalized patients, especially in areas like the ICU.

Read more