Quick Hit – CPOE, a pharmacist’s time and laughter

We’ve finally stepped off the curb and are moving full speed ahead with our CPOE implementation. As a result I spent quite a bit of time last week with our Siemens assigned CPOE consultant. He’s a pharmacist which makes things nice because we understand each other and speak the same language.

The goal of one of the meetings I attended last week was to discuss the resources necessary to implement a CPOE system. Needless to say the project is going to be resource heavy. When it came time to tease out the IT pharmacist part of the project I was a little surprised at what I heard. The time requirements weren’t surprising – several hundred hours – but where the pharmacist fits into the entire scheme was.

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Speech recognition demonstrates value in report tunrnaround time

I came across an interesting tidbit at CMIO.net referencing an article in the July edition of the American Journal of Roentgenology (Roentgenology definition here – yeah, I had to look it up). “According to the research team, the average report turn-around time for the department before implementation of voice recognition was 28 hours. After implementation … Read more

Cool Technology for Pharmacy – PharmaTrust MedCentre

The PharmaTrust MedCentre is a fully automated remote dispensing machine similar to the InstyMeds Prescription Medication Dispenser I mentioned back in October of 2009. We were evaluating the InstyMeds machine when it died a slow agonizing death during budget talks.

The idea is simple really. Load the MedCentre machine with a few hundred of the most commonly prescribed medications in ready to dispense, pre-packaged bottles, have a patient insert a prescription, or “voucher” depending on what country or state you’re in, and sit back and wait for the prescription to pop out. Just like a vending machine. Of course the patient has the option to consult a pharmacist by simply picking up a telephone attached to the machine, but I don’t assume that happens too often. Most people want their medications as quickly as possible.

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Recent travels with the iPad

During my vacation last week I spent a couple of days in Nashville. The trip to Nashville was supposed to be short, fly out on Tuesday morning and return on Wednesday afternoon, but it didn’t turn out that way. I typically carry a laptop or tablet PC when I travel, but decided not to at the last minute secondary to the short turnaround. Instead I threw my iPad in my bag along with my DROID in an effort to travel light.

The trip to Nashville was anything but smooth. My flight was delayed twice in Sacramento and I ended up needing two connections to get to Nashville instead of one. Fortunately for me I had the iPad with its long battery life to keep me entertained for most of the trip. I started in Fresno at 3:00am PST Tuesday morning and arrived in Nashville at 11:30pm EST Tuesday night. I used the iPad to play games in the Sacramento airport during my first 3 hour delay. I made sure I stayed close to an electrical outlet to ensure that I had plenty of battery life for the flight. Between using my DROID heavily, landings, takeoffs and walking from gate to gate I had no trouble making it to Nashville on a single charge.

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Confusion and varying opinions regarding the role of pharmacy in informatics remains the norm

Because I am a member of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (AHSP) I have access to the ASHP Pharmacy Informatics and Technology section listserv. Listservs are a great source of information, and as the name implies, this one is particularly good for getting information on all things related to pharmacy automation, technology and informatics.

A recent post on the informatics listserv caught my attention. The thread was started by a pharmacist asking what skills are necessary for a career in pharmacy informatics. Several pharmacists have chimed in with some great advice, while others have given what I consider to be less than helpful advice. Needless to say the responses have been all over the board as there is no universally accepted definition of what an informatics pharmacists does. Some pharmacists have recommended gaining skill in specific areas, i.e. reporting, HL7 ,etc, while others have taken a broad approach by offering advice on gaining experience in operations, project management, leadership and workflow concept and design.

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AJHP abstracts available for Kindle

I was pleasantly surprised today when I read my ASHP NewsLink and found the following tidbit: “Download AJHP Abstracts to Kindle Reader – Users of the Kindle wireless reading device, from Amazon.com Inc., can now automatically download abstracts of AJHP articles as they become available.” AJHP abstracts are delivered directly to the Kindle e-reader via … Read more

Using the concept of the iPad to further pharmacy education

A few weeks ago I installed the Blausen Human Atlas HD application on my iPad. The application features some pretty incredible 3D images and video. The videos provide an animated narrative on a host of medical conditions and treatments. In addition the Blausen application offers a cool 3D rendering of the human body and a glossary of terms. The images contained in this blog really don’t do it justice, as the iPad’s screen does a very nice job of displaying images like these.

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Thinix Touch UI for tablet PCs

I’ve seen Thinix Touch before, but have renewed interest in the product as I continue to explore new uses for various tablets in my possession. The application has been available on touchscreen computers like the HP TouchSmart series for a while. There’s even a Thinix products page on the company website that lists several devices that are available with the Touch UI.

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