Category Archives: Pharmacy Informatics

Don’t dismiss the value of an operationally sound pharmacist

As pharmacists begin to move out of the physical pharmacy to the patient bedside I think it will become important not to forget the value of a pharmacist that is well versed in how to handle the operational side of pharmacy. Don’t get me wrong, I think pharmacists should be used more for therapeutics than [...]

Musings on poor resource management in healthcare

I’ve recently had the displeasure of running up against some significantly poor resource management that has had a negative impact on my ability do my job, and it got me thinking about what kind of overall impact poor resource management has on healthcare. I’ve held a full time position as a pharmacist in four hospitals and [...]

Update: Siemens Innovations 2010 Presentation

Today was the big day. I gave my presentation at about 11:00 am and it cleared the room. There were about 100 attendees for the CPOE presentation just prior to mine and about 90 of those people got up and left when it came time for me to do my thing. I guess mobile pharmacy [...]

Update: Siemens Innovations 2010 – Day 1

Today was the first real working day at Innovations. Yesterday was taken up by all the registration stuff that you have to do when you arrive at a conference, and the welcome reception. Most of the morning was fairly benign as a good chunk of it was taken up by the opening session. I’m not [...]

Siemens Innovations ’10 here I come

I’m sitting in the airport waiting for my flight. I’m on my way to Orlando for Innovations ’10 for Healthcare IT. Innovations is an annual conference put on by Siemens, who promote themselves as “ a global powerhouse in electronics and electrical engineering, and operates in the industry, energy and healthcare sectors.” The hospital where [...]

Slow progress in pharmacy automation and stale technology creates ho-hum interest

Recently I’ve been in bit of a blogging slump. The world of technology suddenly appears a little less exciting. In fact, I find myself thinking of current technology as boring. I read lots of blog posts and articles that refer to new technologies as “revolutionary”, but I haven’t seen much revolutionary technology lately. In fact, most of [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Using the big boys to search for consumer health information

I’m sure you’ve heard people say “just Google it”. Not only have I heard the phrase, but I’ve used it myself. But how do search engines like Google and Bing work for health related information? Out of simple curiosity I spent a few minutes with Google and Bing to find out.