Jerry Fahrni

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.

-2012 was #1 at the box office last weekend. My family and I saw it last Saturday. It was definitely action packed. There’s no question about next week. The #1 will be The Twilight Saga New Moon, which opened last night at midnight to huge crowds here in Fresno. And yes, my daughters and wife stood in that line to see the first showing. Now that’s dedication.

- Microsoft is offering a free beta download of Office 2010. I downloaded it on Wednesday and have been playing with it off and on. So far I’m very impressed. I especially like the integration with the pen features on my tablet pc. OneNote is fantastic.

- If you like eReaders and think they might be a good Christmas gift, then I highly recommend you check out the eReader Holiday Gift Guide at Best Tablet Review; part 1 and part 2.

- Chest 2009;136:1237-1248: “The appropriateness of initial antimicrobial therapy, the clinical infection site, and relevant pathogens were retrospectively determined for 5,715 patients with septic shock in three countries. Inappropriate initial antimicrobial therapy for septic shock occurs in about 20% of patients and is associated with a fivefold reduction in survival. Efforts to increase the frequency of the appropriateness of initial antimicrobial therapy must be central to efforts to reduce the mortality of patients with septic shock.” – The moral of the story boys and girls is to be aggressive with antimicrobial therapy and do it quickly. Don’t forget, the most effective means of treating early sepsis is antimicrobial therapy, volume, and pressor support.

- There is currently a shortage of propofol. This is causing a lot of problems in hospitals as propofol is a favorite in the O.R. and ICU.

- Google’s Chrome OS is out in the open and everyone is talking about it. Unfortunately, most of the weblogs I’ve read haven’t been all that flattering. Most are complaining that the new OS is too basic. I suppose you can’t please everyone.

- DailyMedRx: “DailyMed transfers your prescriptions, over-the-counter medications and vitamins, and organizes them into pre-sorted packets clearly marked with the date and time they should be taken. Your entire 30-day supply is delivered to your home in our convenient dispensing box. DailyMed is perfect for you or a loved one who is constantly running to a pharmacy only to spend hours rummaging through multiple pill bottles or confusing pill reminders – never quite sure if everything is handled correctly.” – Thanks to Carla Corkern (@carlacorkern) for bringing this to my attention. DailyMedRx is an interesting concept and one that would be useful for patients with several different medication regimens.

- Post Graduate Medical Journal 2009;85:455-459: “Social networking sites: a novel portal for communication – Facebook is providing a readily accessible portal for patients, carers and healthcare professionals to share their experiences of investigation, diagnosis and management of disease. Furthermore, this technology is being used for research, education and fundraising. Further research is warranted to explore the further potential of this new technology.” – I always love it when they say further research is warranted. It gives the authors something to plan for. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The most interesting thing about the use of social media by healthcare professionals is that these portals were developed for the consumer market. Once again the consumer market has taken the lead and developed a technology that is better than anything the healthcare market could create.

- The ARCHOS 9 tablet is a rather thin tablet pc with a high-definition 8.9” screen and resistive touch screen. It runs windows 7 and looks impressive. The ARCHOS 9 was supposed to hit the shelves sometime in late October, but it looks like it won’t be available until sometime in early 2010. Check out the video below.

-    Best Droid cartoon I’ve seen to date.

- I’m a little late to the party, but I’ve finally started using Google Wave. I received an invite from Dr. Heather Leslie (@omowizard) because our discussion about allergies wouldn’t fit within the 140 character limit of Twitter. I can see that Wave has tremendous potential, but I must admit that there is a bit of a learning curve. I would like to see more pharmacists start using it as a way of sharing resources and collaborating on projects. If only.

- If you’ve ever wondered what the worst apps for the iPhone were, all you have to do is look at this story. My favorite is Hang Time, which encourages you to throw your very pricey iPhone in the air to measure how high it goes.

- The Arizona Cardinals beat the Seahawks last week, which puts them in the lead in the NFC West for a second straight year. I know it’s a weak division, but I’ll take what I can get. On the schedule this week, the Rams. Hey isn’t that like having a second bye week?

- Ahhh, vacation. I’m on-call through Monday morning of next week, and then I’m on vacation for seven glorious days. I’m looking forward to some good old fashioned time off.

Have a great weekend everyone.