Recently I was fortunate enough to be a beta tester for the new Android version of Lexi-Comp’s suite of medical information software. I was very excited for the opportunity as I’ve been using what I would consider inferior drug information resources since purchasing my Droid about a month ago. The installation was a problem initially as the databases wouldn’t install directly to the microSD card on the Droid. As you can imagine, the databases are large and immediately filled up the physical memory on the device. Within a couple of weeks of reporting the problem to Lexi-Comp they had corrected the issue and sent me a new build that installed seamlessly.
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Dec 232009
Dec 222009
RTT News: “3M Health Information Systems has released 3M(TM) Mobile Dictation Software, a powerful new application that extends 3M’s dictation, transcription, and speech recognition solutions. Available on the BlackBerry(R) or Windows Mobile(R) platforms, the software offers physicians the freedom of using a single device for phone, email, and dictation, and provides “anytime, anywhere” access via Wi-Fi or 3G wireless service. 3M Mobile Dictation is enhanced with a full range of security features that fulfill HIPAA and hospital-specific guidelines for encryption and authentication.” – Developments such as mobile dictation could decrease the turnaround time between the physician’s spoken word and a readable document, which is one of the biggest issues with dictated notes. With the popularity of smartphones most physicians will have easy access to timely dictation. In theory that is.
Visit the 3M site for more information.
Dec 222009
Forni A, Chu HT. Technology Utilization to Prevent Medication Errors. Curr Drug Saf. 2009 Oct 7 [ePub]
This is a nice review article explores current technologies available to healthcare and what role they play in the reduction of medication errors. The article provides a short review of literature to support each technology reviewed. Technologies covered include: Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE), Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS), Patient Monitoring: Electronic Surveillance, Reminders, and Alerts, Telemedicine, Bar Code Medication Verification (BMV), a.k.a. Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA), Smart Infusion Pumps, and electronic medication administration record (eMAR).
The article concludes with:
The implementation of health information technology can result in a reduction in ADEs and can impact the quality of patient care. Systems integration and compliance are vital in achieving a safe medication use process. Hospitals that have extensive computerized technology and have greater automation tend to have better patient outcomes, including fewer complications, reduced inpatient mortality and lower hospital costs. Regulatory agencies and payers are now using performance standards and financial incentives to force practices changes. This may increase the speed and likelihood of technology implementation. While many providers may dismiss technology as being beyond their scope of practice or responsibility, both practitioners and patients should be prepared for these changes.
It’s time for healthcare system to take note of this and begin planning accordingly. You can’t escape the explosion of technology available, nor can you afford to ignore the implications of choosing not to use it.
Dec 212009
CrunchGear reports on a new product called Lockface USB flash drive from Futen, a Japanese company. The flash drive uses facial recognition to identify its users. According to CrunchGear: “The first thing to do is to register a number of pictures of your face. After that, the Lockface verifies your face every time you need to access data on it (the verification process takes about a second). The USB drive doesn’t require extra software to be downloaded or installed. Alternatively, you can also use a password, completely ignoring the face recognition function of the device. It uses 256-bit AES to encrypt the data. Futen says the device has an error rate of about 2% (it verifies the “wrong” person in 1.91% of cases and won’t verify the right person in 1.98% of cases).”
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Dec 182009
Thanks for all the people who ventured a guess. Only the medications are transcribed and the original image is posted below the answers as a reference.
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Installing and using Citrix Receiver on your iPhone/iPod Touch
While at ASHP Midyear a colleague and friend of mine, @pillguy, was able to pull up the pharmacy system at his hospital using Citrix on his iPhone. At that moment I was attacked by a green monster and nearly consumed with envy. I can not yet match this feat of superiority with my Droid, but I’m hopeful.
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There is a nice article in the November 2009 issue of Hospital Pharmacy on the use of clinical surveillance in pharmacy. I’ve mentioned these types of systems before here and here.
From the article:
Clinical surveillance tools are atype of clinical decision support system (CDSS), providing pharmacists with patient information that has been filtered according to predefined criteria and is presented at appropriate times to enhance patient care. These tools pull data from 3 sources—admission/discharge/transfer (ADT), laboratory, and pharmacy—and use clinical rules to analyze the data and alert the user of instances that meet the rules’criteria. Though there is some variability in methods across the different vendors’ products, these Webbased applications enerally function by interfacing (HL7) with the hospital’s information systems to securely pull the data to the vendor’s server where the data are analyzed against a set of clinical rules. Some vendors allow the client to build their own rules, some provide a foundational set of rules, and others do not allow user-defined rules. This is an important distinction to make when evaluating the different applications.
For more information try visiting John’s Evernote repository for Clinical Decision Support.
Dec 162009
Below is an example of some pretty bad handwriting. Take a look at it and see if you can decipher what the physician wants. I am looking for only medication related orders. Leave your guesses in the comment section. Good luck.
The solution can be found here.
