As you read this the ASHP Summer Meeting is taking place in Denver, Colorado. While the ceremonial start isn’t until after the Opening Session and Keynote tomorrow (Monday, June 13) things have been in full swing since Saturday.
West Coast fails to get single city in list of top 7 cities for IT jobs…bummer
Houston claimed the top spot to find an IT job in large part due to its position as a key hub for numerous global organizations – many of which are now rebounding from the recession and benefitting from increased IT budget.
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A number of east coast cities also took top spots on the list – including Washington, D.C., which came in second, and boasts a 6 percent unemployment rate, well below the national average. Not surprisingly, most of the employment demand in the nation’s capital is being driven by the U.S. government, as it provides a variety of economic incentives for companies to start up or to relocate in the market. In addition to the government, other sectors seeking IT talent in Washington, D.C. include biotech, associations, telecom, financial services, technology, IT startups/dot-coms, construction and hospitality.
The full list of top cities to find a job in IT are:
1. Houston
2. Washington, DC
3. Columbus, OH
4. Detroit
5. Philadelphia
6. Edison, NJ
7. Boston
Why do you suppose the West Coast is so far out of the loop?
Pharmacy Director needed…programming experience required?
As I alluded to in a recent post, I still get a fair number of emails and phone calls from pharmacy recruiters; actually got one of each today.
The following recruiter email arrived in my inbox a few days ago. I found a few things very interesting. Feel free to read the entire job description, but pay particular attention to the highlighter sections.
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Do larger hospitals have an edge? Maybe
I’ve worked in several hospitals over the course of my career, ranging in size from 25 acute care beds to nearly 600 (584 beds to be exact). While 600 beds isn’t a large hospital, it certainly isn’t small. Regardless of the size of the hospital I’ve worked in, the operations inside the walls of the pharmacy are strikingly similar, including from the way pharmacists process orders to the way technicians handle distribution. There are differences to be sure, but the basics are the same. Differences to note include clinical services and use of automation and technology.
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The ever expanding role of pharmacists
Lately I’ve found myself thinking about how pharmacists are involved in healthcare. Despite popular belief pharmacists do more than simply work in the pharmacy.
Throughout my career I’ve become accustomed to people viewing pharmacists as the stereotypically person behind the counter at the drug store “counting pills”. While that’s not all pharmacists do, I’ve learned to live with the general publics simplistic view. I don’t think most people realize that pharmacists are involved in every aspect of a patient’s care. If you’ve ever been in a hospital, received a prescription medication, had a loved one in a long term care facility, received intravenous medications at home like total parenteral nutrition (TPN) or antibiotics, received an albumin or intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) infusion in an outpatient infusion center or met with a pharmacist in a clinic setting for a medication therapy management (MTM) session, then you’ve been touched by a pharmacist.
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BlackBerry devices in healthcare (Video)
I found this interesting video (below) showing some of the things BlackBerry is doing at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). The name BlackBerry really doesn’t come to mind when you think of healthcare. Maybe the new BlackBerry PlayBook will help change all that. It’s a compelling device for anyone already using a BlackBerry smartphone.
There’s a great review of the BlackBerry PlayBook at CrackBerry.com if you’re interested in learning more about the device.
Why not a computerized pharmacist?
So IBW’s Watson recently competed and won ‘Jeopardy!”. Well, ‘Jeopardy!’ is a lot harder than verifying many medication orders routinely seen by pharmacists in the acute care setting.
According to a recent article at Network World: “Watson’s ability to analyze the meaning and context of human language, and quickly process information to find precise answers, can assist decision makers such as physicians and nurses, unlock important knowledge and facts buried within huge volumes of information, and offer answers they may not have considered to help validate their own ideas or hypotheses, IBM stated.
From IBM: “… a doctor considering a patient’s diagnosis could use Watson’s analytics technology, in conjunction with Nuance’s voice and clinical language understanding solutions, to rapidly consider all the related texts, reference materials, prior cases, and latest knowledge in journals and medical literature to gain evidence from many more potential sources than previously possible. This could help medical professionals confidently determine the most likely diagnosis and treatment options.”"
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Death of intellectual curiosity, due diligence and our profession
Over the weekend I read a tweet from a friend and colleague @kevinclauson. The tweet shared a link to an article titled “Young Adults’ Credibility Assessment of Wikipedia”. I don’t have a problem with the article. On the contrary, it just reinforces my dislike of Wikipedia as a healthcare reference source.
From the abstract: “This paper found that a few students demonstrated in-depth knowledge of the Wikipedia editing process, while most had some understanding of how the site functions and a few lacked even such basic knowledge as the fact that anyone can edit the site. Although many study participants had been advised by their instructors not to cite Wikipedia articles in their schoolwork, students nonetheless often use it in their everyday lives.” Kevin also links to the pre-print version of the article here (PDF).
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“What’s in it for me?”
I spent some time this week in Las Vegas attending some NCPDP work groups on standards, e-prescribing and pedigree/track and trace. Because I’m relatively naïve in these areas I learned a lot. The NCPDP is an interesting organization that appears to be doing a lot of the right things in driving standards and improving e-prescribing in the outpatient setting. Unfortunately acute care hasn’t been as aggressive in adopting these standards or implementing e-prescribing. That’s for another blog post.
Following the scheduled meetings I found myself sitting in on a few impromptu after hours sessions where I got my first glimpse of the political side of the pharmacy underbelly. Let’s just say that there are a lot of special interest groups involved in the process and much of what they want has little to do with better healthcare or improved patient care. Instead it’s a what’s-in-it-for-me mentality. It was disturbing to see the good work that NCPDP was doing overshadowed by groups looking to make a buck or make sure that their competitors didn’t get the upper hand.
Even though I was enlightened by the work done by NCPDP, I was troubled by the behavior of “industry leaders” and large healthcare providers. I believe we have forgotten the reason we’re in healthcare in the first place. I’m just sayin’.
