Anyway, here’s some other stuff I’ve found interesting over the weekend:

Blood clots made visible by nanoparticles (Gizmag) – I like nanoparticles. Their value appears limitless as batteries, tumor destroying soldiers, robotic surgeons, etc. If I was younger, smarter and research driven this is where I would spend my time; targeted drug delivery is the future.

Medscape Mobile for Android – Medscape mobile isn’t in that upper echelon of medical reference apps, but it’s fairly decent and free.

New Study Identifies Frequent Causes of Analgesic Medication Errors (American Pain Society) – Not surprisingly the article quotes the frequency of analgesic drug errors in hospitals as nearly 3 per 1000 prescriptions. However, it’s important to remember how drug errors are acknowledged; some are harmful, while others hold no clinical significance. The article in The Journal of Pain can be found here.

Smartphone Usage up 60 Percent (paidContent.org) – Of course Apple and Android are the big winners, with Android on top, but expect the numbers to shift again now that the iPhone is available on Verizon.

American Institute of Pharmaceutical Science (AIPS) – “AIPS is a 501c(3) non-profit organization that is focused on advancing healthcare solutions and improving medication safety and health outcomes.” – Interesting site. Thanks to John Poikonen (@poikonen) for bringing it to my attention.

WebMD vs. MayoClinic.com – Reliable Medical Information (eHealth John Sharp) – Very interesting take on medical information and commercial advertising.

Most read posts over the past week on this site:

1. Time to accept pharmacy robotics as our friend and ally
2. Automated unit-dose packagers for acute care pharmacy
3. Cool Technology for Pharmacy (Alaris Smartpumps)
4. Cool Technology for Pharmacy (Capsule machine)
5. Do smaller hospitals get the shaft when it comes to automation and technology?
6. “What’d I miss?” – Week of January 30, 2011
7. The National Drug code (NDC) is a gremlin in the works of pharmacy
8. Moving storage around in the “cloud”
9. Barcodes on patient wristbands
10. Best iPhone / iPod Touch Applications for Pharmacists

Below is a list of opinions I’ve gathered over the past 12 months. Some are pharmacy related, some are technology related, some are personal, and some are just random thoughts.

And here we go…

Best idea for healthcare – An integrated healthcare solution; easier said than done

Worst idea for healthcare – An integrated healthcare solution. The current infrastructure won’t support it.

Biggest healthcare story of the year – Meaningful use and electronic health records (EHR)m

Biggest pharma story of the year - Withdrawal of propoxyphene from US market. Good riddance.

Biggest story in acute care pharmacy operations – Recalls and drug shortages; 2010 was the worst year in recent memory.

Best idea for new pharmacy practice model – PPMI from ASHP

Biggest disappointment in pharmacy practice – PPMI from ASHP

Biggest disappointment from a pharmacy organization – California Society of Health-System Pharmacists (CSHP). I reached out to CSHP regarding tech-check-tech in California and they blew me off. I received a generic response to my first email, then nothing from my follow up email back to them. It’s ok if your opinion is different than mine, but at least have an opinion. #Fail

Best idea in pharmacy that has yet to mature – Clinical Decision Support (CDS) and RFID

Best drug information resource, hardcopy – Lexi-Comp Drug Information Handbook

Best drug information resource, handheld/electronic – Lexi-Comp Lexi-Drugs

Best pharmacokinetics calculator, handheld/electronic – RxCalc for the iPhone, of course

Best medical reference, electronic/web based – UpToDate (includes access to Lexi-Drugs, online version)

Best customer support – Talyst – Disclaimer: I’ve been working for Talyst since the beginning of December 2010, but had this opinion log before then. That’s part of the reason I decided to go to work for them. I’m just sayin’.

Worst customer support – Integrated Informatics, makers of POMS

Best bar code scanner used this year – Code Reader 3500. Still my favorite.

Best article on bar-code technology – “Effect of Bar-Code Technology on the Safety of Medication Administration” NEJM 2010; 362: 1698-1707

Biggest bar coding challenge for me this year – Actually I had two challenges this year: 1) keeping up with bar-code changes from the manufacturers and 2) acting on analytics collected from out BCMA system.

Most valuable data collected – Data from our MAK (BCMA) system

Least useful data collected – Pharmacist intervention data. I just don’t see the value in continuing to collect data to justify our existence when no one does anything with it.

Best automated dispensing cabinet technology – Omnicell. While Pyxis is still king of the hill, Omnicell is chipping away with better R&D.

Best tablet that never was – Notion Adam Ink. The tablet looks great on video, and you can pre-order it, but I’ll believe it when I see it. You wonder why Apple is winning the tablet market; look no further than companies like Notion Ink and their year long tease.

Best eReader – Barnes & Noble Nook. Say what you will about the Kindle, but my daughter has a Nook and it’s a very nice, easy to use device.

Best eReader that no one is talking about – Barnes & Noble Nook Color. The Nook Color is an Android driven eReader with 7-inch LCD screen with touch interface, and it’s a great device.

Best information collection tool I used this year – Evernote. I couldn’t live without it. SpringPad is nice, but Evernote is still the big dog in this category.

Best file sync tool I used this year – Dropbox is simply awesome. SugarSync deserves mention. Microsoft has all the pieces in place, but has yet to deliver a coherent solution. Maybe next year boys.

Best screen capture utility – FastStone Capture. It’s light weight, easy to use and performs admirably. I use it all the time.

Best new desktop application I used this year – Skype

Best new smartphone application I used this year – Google Voice

Best convertible tablet PC I used this year –Lenovo X201 tablet PC, hands down.

Worst convertible tablet PC I used this year – Dell Latitude XT2 tablet PC. I used this tablet PC for about a year and always thought it was ok. That was until I purchased a Lenovo X201 tablet PC. Now I consider the Dell as an overpriced piece of junk.

Best slate tablet PC I used this year – Motion Computing J3400. The J3500 is the updated version of the J3400 rugged slate tablet. As far as Windows based slates go, I don’t think you’ll find a better device in the current crop of tablets.

Coolest new concept for a tablet PC – The Dell Inspiron Duo. I would love to see more tablet PC manufacturers use this design concept.

Worst marketing campaign for a tablet PC – The HP Slate 500. No wonder tablet PCs have such a hard time catching on.

Best not-a-tablet-not-an-ereader device – The Kno. Great concept, I hope it makes it.

Most popular “tablet” – Apple iPad

Most overhyped device – Apple iPad

Mobile device with the biggest impact on healthcare – Apple iPad

Biggest status symbol for physicians and executives in healthcare – Apple iPad

Most underrated “tablet” of 2010 – Samsung Galaxy Tab

Best tablet PC software – Microsoft OneNote. I use it all the time and love it.

Best PDF annotation software – PDF Annotator

Best tablet pc blogger on the ‘net – Warner Crocker (@WarnerCrocker) of GottaBeMobile.com.

Best UMPC blogger on the ‘net – Steve ‘Chippy’ Paine (@chippy) of UMPCPortal.com.

Most interesting blogger on the ‘net – Louis Gray. He blogs about things that interest me, and he appears to be less biased than most. I can appreciate that.

Best everything mobile site on the ‘net – GottaBeMobile

Best gadget site on the ‘net – Engadget

Coolest gaming gadget of the year – Kinect for Xbox. Bought one for my nephew for Christmas. Man, what a blast. And that doesn’t even include what you can do with it once it’s been hacked.

Best new smartphone – Samsung Galaxy S and the iPhone 4. Bought my daughter a Samsung Fascinate for Christmas and let me just say that it is one phenomenal smartphone.

Biggest surprise in the smartphone market – Windows Phone 7. I spent some time playing with one at the Microsoft Retail Store and it was really nice.

Biggest tragedy in smartphones – Basically the webOS died in 2010. I hope I’m wrong because the user interface is really something.

Most functional smartphone – Android smartphones. Take your pick.

Most exciting developments in an operating system – Android. It’s only just begun.

Best smartphone user interface – iPhone 4. HTC gets honorable mention here.

Most exciting non-hardware smartphone development – HTCSense.com. The website is a series of connected services for security, backup and remote control of your HTC device. I’m surprised Google hasn’t done something like this already. The potential is off the charts.

Best meeting/conference attended – ASHP Midyear 2010

Best advice I received in 2010 – Change jobs

Best presentation attended – There were two presentations I attended at this year that really caught my attention: 1) Alternatives to Barcoding: RFID and RTLS at the unSUMMIT and 2) Better Patient Care and Safer Staff with IV Compounding Automation at ASHP Midyear

Best presentation I gave this year – Hard to say really, but the presentation I did for Nova Southeastern University titled “Pharmacy informatics – One pharmacist’s perspective” had some pretty good informational content.

Best webinar attended – Barcoding End-to-End Solutions: From Pharmacy to Bedside. This webinar featured Dr. David W. Bates and Dr. Eric Poon from the NEJM article mentioned above.

Best vendor I worked with this year – Talyst

Worst vendor I worked with this year – Siemens

Best RSS Reader – Google Reader

Best email client – GMail

Best online collaboration tool – Google Docs

Best new thing that people won’t use – Google Buzz

Best search engine – Bing is gaining, but Google still rules.

Best browser for Windows machine – Google Chrome has now overtaken Firefox as my browser of choice.

Best extensions for Google Chrome
1. Chromed Bird
2. Clip to Evernote
3. Session Buddy
4. iReader
5. Docs PDF/PoserPoint Viewer (by Google)
6. Awesome Screenshot

Best consumer cloud provider – No brainer, Google

Most impressive push into the cloud – Microsoft with Window Azure

Best Twitter client for Android – Seesmic

Best Twitter client for the iPhone – TweetDeck

Best Twitter client for the desktop – Don’t know. I no longer use a desktop client for Twitter. I now use a combination of the Twitter website and the Chromed Bird extension for Google Chrome.

Best desktop operating system – Windows 7. I don’t care what anyone says, I like it.

Most exciting new development in a desktop operating system – Google Chrome OS. I’ve only seen glimpses of it, but I’m excited about its potential.

Most frustrating computer upgrade – Mac OS X Snow Leopard. I was forced to upgrade my 21-inch iMac  secondary to the purchase of an iPad. Following the upgrade it became slow and unresponsive, basically turning it into a very expensive paperweight.

Number of movies my wife, Lori and I saw at the theater this year – 47

Best movie that I saw in the theater- This is tough for me. I think I’m going to go with:
1. Iron Man 2
2. Red
3. How to Train Your Dragon

Most overhyped movies that I saw in the theater
1. The Other Guys
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part I)

Worst movie that I saw in the theater- The American with George Clooney. The Wolfman was a close second.

Worst trend in movies – 3D. Someone please knock some sense into these people. I don’t know anyone that actually likes 3D.

Biggest grossing movie of 2010 – Toy Story 3. It did over $400 Million at the box office. Avatar actually grossed more domestically in 2010, but it was released on December 18, 2009.

Most overused word of 2010 – Meaningful use. I still don’t fully understand what it means.

Most valuable lesson learned in 2010 – Don’t wait so long to make a move and let people know what you want.

Best thing I did for myself – Changed jobs

Biggest surprise about my new job – The laptop assigned to me is older and in worse shape than the one I used to complain about when I worked in the hospital. Doh!

Best thing about the new job – The people and the projects.

Worst thing about the new job – Having to wear a “jacket and tie” when visiting “customers”.

Coolest commercials on TV – Geico (Therapist Sarge and Woodchucks) and E-trade (Solitary)

Worst advertising campaign – Visa and their Never Miss a Super Bowl commercials. Meet Larry “I’ve missed weddings. I have missed babies being born. But I have no intention of ever missing a Super Bowl, ever.” Makes me want to turn off the TV and spend a little time with the family. I assume that wasn’t Visa’s intent.

Best YouTube video of 2010 – iPhone4 vs HTC Evo. If you’ve ever met an Apple cultist, errr, I mean fanboy then you know they can’t be reasoned with because their minds are sealed off from rational thought. Baa-baa!

Biggest surprise in professional football – The Kansas City Chiefs. Well done.

Biggest disappointment in professional football – The Arizona Cardinals. What a difference a year and the loss of Kurt Warner makes.

Gutsiest coaching decision in professional football – The New Orleans Saints decision to open the second half of Super Bowl XLIV with an onside kick. Wow.

Best catch in the NFL 2010 – Randy Moss one-handed TD catch against the Jets. Crazy.

Biggest what-the-heck moment in pro sports – Jets assistant coach Sal Alosi tripping a Miami Dolphins player during kick coverage

Biggest disappointment in college football – Boise state losing a game and not going undefeated

Worst system in the universe to determine a sports champion – The BCS. Unfortunately it seems to work out year after year as teams like Boise shoot themselves in the foot.

Worst professional sport to watch on TV or in person – Major League Baseball

Best professional sport to watch on TV or in person – The NFL of course.

Most visited post on this website in 2010 – Best iPhne/iPod Touch Applications for Pharmacists originally posted September 14, 2009

Biggest blogging disappointment this year – My former employer censoring my blogging by whipping out a “social media” policy. Nice!

Here’s to a New Year full of new and wondrous things.

• Saw 3D was #1 at the box office last weekend. It’s not my kind of movie so I won’t be seeing it. My wife and I saw Due Date instead. It was good and definitely worth a laugh.
• Check out the Mirador Biomedical Compass Vascular Access pressure measurement device at medGadget. “Making sure that you are not in a carotid (or subclavian or femoral arteries, etc) is not always as simple as many think.” – Yikes! I didn’t need to know that.
• MedShare for the BlackBerry is now available in Quebec. “MedShare’s BlackBerry solution allows home care workers to access their client list, client health information and schedule on the popular BlackBerry device.” Cool. I will be getting my first BlackBerry device in a couple of weeks (new job) and I’ve been scouring the internet to see what’s out there for the device. The idea of having a BlackBerry smartphone is making the new BlackBerry Playbook look better and better every day.
• Well, it looks like IT jobs will be safe for a while longer. According to a survey by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives “more than 60% of hospital IT executives believe tech staffing shortages, which some estimate to be a shortfall of 50,000 qualified IT professionals, will definitely or possibly affect their chances to achieve meaningful use.” And we all know what meaningful use means to hospitals; money. Now might be a good time to start thinking about outsourcing your IT department.
• There’s a great article at Healthcare IT News titled “Six best practices for EHR implementation”.  Even though the list is aimed at EHR implementation, the recommendations can be applied to nearly any healthcare technology project. Actually, you could apply to principles to nearly any type of project. The best practices include:
  • Tailor your EHR to fit within staff workflows.
  • Identify ways the EHR could potentially fail in order to prevent problems in the future
  • Don’t rush implementation, take time to train
  • In EHR implementation, practices are not extensions of the hospital
  • Eliminate duplication
  • Work with experts who have EHR implementation experience
• Speaking of EHRs, did you know that statistics show the United States is one of the slowest countries in the race to adopt electronic health records? This according to the EHR Bloggers website. In addition the site goes on to say “while the US tends to rise above other countries in other business sectors, we are severely lagging in health IT.” As odd as this may sound I’m not surprised by that statement. The coolest gadgets in the world land in the US last or are severely crippled secondary to some regulatory issue when they get here. It only makes sense that this trickles into health IT.
• If you’re looking for a unique gift idea look no further than fake product boxes. These things are funny, and what’s even funnier is that I thought the iArm Forearm Mount was a real product. It’s exactly what I would expect from an Apple Fanboy. Ha!
• Remember Dell’s Inspiron Duo? I certainly do. Sure it’s just another tablet, but the screen flips over when converted to slate mode from convertible mode. It’s just plain cool. I’ve been critical of Dell in the past, but they’ve really ramped up their game lately. Dare I say they’ve been innovative? No, let’s not get carried away just yet.

• Want the yin and the yang on whether you should buy a new tablet for Christmas? If so, then have a look at GottaBeMobile.
  • Why You Might Want To Buy a Tablet/Slate This Christmas
  • Why You Might Not Want To Buy a Tablet/Slate This Christmas
• The Motorola Defy was released this week. This little Android based smartphone sports a 3.7-inch display with Gorilla Glass, and is both water and dust resistant. Gotta’ love it.
• A recent article in The Annals of Pharacotherapy compared the “severity ranking of proprietary databases to clinician assessment” for drug-drug interactions, i.e. man versus machine. The clinicians didn’t necessarily agree with the software. Interesting. All this says is what I already knew; technology and common sense go hand in hand. Software can’t really replace a pharmacist with good deductive reasoning and lots of experience, but it can make his job easier. (Ann Pharmacother ;44:1718-1724 )
• There’s a decent article at KevinMD.com on direct-to-consumer advertising (DTC). According to the article “the pressure to prescribe an advertised medication that a patient asks for by name can be great. Physicians may feel compelled to comply with the patient’s wishes.” On the surface this can seem like a bad thing, but on occasion it could benefit the patient. For this reason I remain on the fence regarding DTC advertising. For the most part I’m opposed to it, but on the other hand it is one way to disseminate information.
• The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued another recall for Symbiq One- and Two-Channel pumps. This is the third recall for these pumps. Oops!
• Do you ever get the feeling that Apple uses a lot of smoke and mirrors to get people to buy into their singular view of the world? It appears that putting Flash on the new 11-inch MacBook Air kills about a third of the batter life. Bummer.
• Google instant is now available for mobile devices. I love the instant search feature in Google, and it’s simply awesome on a mobile device.

• The NFL Network has been doing The Top 100 Greatest Players of all time. Well, they finally made it to #1 and it’s Jerry Rice. No disrespect to Mr. Rice, but are the people at the NFL crazy? Look at the people that they put Rice in front of: Lawrence Taylor, the man that single handedly changed the way offensive lines play, particularly the left tackle position; Walter Payton. Enough said; Dick Butkus, are you kidding me? This guy defined NFL toughness at the linebacker position; Jim Thorpe at #37. Do you know what this guy did? The credibility of the list is suspect to say the least.
• It’s week 9 in the NFL people, and there are some great games on tap. Who would have thought Tampa Bay would be playing a meaningful game against a divisional opponent in November? Not me. Miami and Baltimore is going to be a slobber-knocker, as will the Pittsburgh – Cincinnati game on Monday night. Oh, so much football to watch. I can’t wait.
• Oh yeah, San Francisco won the World Series. Here’s something of interest. On Sunday night, NBC’s Steelers-Saints game drew an 11.8 national rating, while Fox’s Giants-Rangers Game 4 drew a 10.4 rating. And on Monday night Fox’s Giants-Rangers Game 5 earned a 10.6 national rating, while ESPN’s Texans-Colts game drew an 8.6. So a couple of mid-season NFL games nearly trumped the World Series. That’s worth noting. There was a time when the NFL wouldn’t dare televise a game at the same time as the World Series, but now they couldn’t care less. Baseball is a boring, slow moving sport with little of interest, while football is an action packed dynamo still building steam. Take the hint Bud and cut the baseball season back before it’s too late. I’m just sayin’.

Have a great weekend everyone.

• Paranormal Activity 2 was #1 at the box office last weekend. It’s not my kind of movie so I won’t be seeing it. I see movies to be entertained, not to be scared, grossed out or depressed. So last weekend my family and I took in Life As We Know It.
• There’s a video on YouTube showing a much longer demonstration of the BlackBerry PlayBook. In my opinion the most impressive thing about the PlayBook demonstration is the card-type application management borrowed from the webOS. You get a peek of what I’m talking about at about 1:15 into the video and again at about 3:00. I thought about this type of interface for a project I recently worked on. It would be perfect.

• A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the post “Fired for Blog Post” at RxInformatics.com. Revisiting the post I found the following user comment posted on October 28: “You’ve articulated issues with ASHP’s power structure that I’ve seen personally in the past. In 1991, I turned down a job with ASHP in Bethesda because as an employee for ASHP, I would be PROHIBITED FROM WORKING AS A HOSPITAL PHARMACIST. So, with staff that are forbidden to be in the real world, what do you think happens to the passion and advocacy for our profession by ASHP staff?” Hmm, that’s not good now is it.
• Speaking of ASHP, The Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative (PPMI) Summit 2010 is set to begin in Dallas, Texas on November 7. You can attend even if you can’t be there in person via virtual participation. This is a big step for ASHP and I hope it is successful. I’ve signed up for virtual access and hope to see you there.
• Lately I’ve been experimenting more with Springpad. It’s kind of a miniature version of Evernote. Springpad is available via the web, for the iPhone and for the Andrid OS. It offers a very nice interface and a great way to sort items that you want to remember. For a nice review of the similarities and difference between Springpad and Evernote see the excellent article by Wade Roush at Xconomy.
• KevinMD – How Apple can fix the usability problem in healthcare: “I say this [wanting Macbooks to replace PCs] because my mind was opened to a new world when I started using Apple products — usability. Usability means making tools easier-to-use so you can complete your job quicker or easier than you previously could. Windows-based PCs are notorious for their usability problems…Since we have all used a Windows-based PC they are great at exemplifying usability problems.” This is an interesting opinion. I believe the author is correct that Windows offers some usability challenges and that Microsoft needs to redesign the Windows environment to be more user friendly. However, simply converting everyone’s hardware over to Apple products isn’t the answer; it’s simply a band-aid approach to the problem. And healthcare is good at applying band-aids to problems.
• GottaBeMobile: “Now let’s define that “good Inking experience.” What’s good enough for me may not be for you. What’s not good for me, may be more than sufficient for you. As I say over and over my note taking with Digital Ink is quick, down, and dirty. In rehearsal I’m watching the stage and scribbling on a screen simultaneously. I can’t afford to watch my hand and/or the stylus. This isn’t meticulous work, it is quick and I need the medium to not get in the way. With a Tablet PC, not only could I do that, but using OneNote I could, in most cases, find what I scribbled with its excellent search. I don’t think we’ll ever see that on an iPad. Up until now the iPad App, Penultimate has come the closest to giving me what I am looking for on the iPad.” – I have great respect for Warner Crocker, the author of the article, but in my opinion the inking experience on the iPad doesn’t even come close to the tablet PC.
• I took a look at the new MacBook Air last week. What can I say; I think it’s pretty cool. Like everything Apple it’s sexy, but I have to agree with Joseph Kim at Mobile Health Computing, the MacBook Air is simply overpriced for what you get. With that said, people will eat them up because Apple’s Commander in Chief says you should.
• There are a couple of new drugs that have recently been approved:  fidaxomicin for Clostridium difficile and ceftaroline for community-acquired bacterial pneumonia and acute bacterial skin infections, including those caused by MRSA. Both approvals are significant secondary to a general lack of medications available to treat each disease states, i.e. Clostridium difficile and MRSA based skin/soft tissue infections.
• Pfizer announced that it intends to recall more Lipitor secondary to “an uncharacteristic odor related to the bottles.” More information can be found here (PDF).
• The Medicine Guy has a nice summary article on what a drug interaction is. “You should always check for an interaction if you are taking more than one substance (drug, herb, vitamin, etc.). Ask your pharmacist to explain the effects as well, and for a recommendation on how the problem should be addressed.” A sound piece of advice.
• HealthLeaders Media: “The report’s executive summary estimates that an even greater number, 6.3 million medical injuries, occurred in the U.S. in 2008. Of those, 1.5 million were associated with a medical error.” Ouch! And what  are the top 10 most expensive types of errors? Well, I’m glad you asked. According to the article they are:
  • • pressure ulcers
    • postoperative infections
    • mechanical complications of a device, implant or graft
    • postlaminectomy syndrome
    • hemorrhage complicating a procedure
    • infection following infusion, injection, transfusion, vaccination
    • pneumothorax
    • Infection due to central venous catheter
    • other complications of internal prosthetic device, implant and graft
    • ventral hernia without mention of obstruction or gangrene.
• I’ve had reason lately to move more of my document storage to the cloud. My cloud storage of choice is Dropbox. I use SugarSync as a alternative depending on my needs. Recently I decided to give Box.net a try. While it offers some advantages over Dropbox and SugarSync, like the ability to create a Web Doc directly inside the application, it is much more expensive on a gigabyte basis than Dropbox and SugarSync. For now I’ll stick with Dropbox.
• I’m still looking for a new tablet. Almost pulled the trigger on an HP Slate 500 Tablet PC today. Almost. The reviews haven’t been bad, but they haven’t been great either. I need more recon before I can make a decision.
• I saw a bunch of tweets the other night about the San Francisco Giants. It took me a few minutes to realize they’re still playing baseball. Don’t they know it’s almost November. When you have to wear a jacket and you can see your breath, it means you shouldn’t be playing baseball. The only saving grace is knowing that it will soon be over and no longer take valuable media time away from football.
• One gotta see college football game this weekend is USC vs. Oregon. The Ducks may be the best team in college football at the moment, but USC always plays tough in the Pac-10.
• Do woodchucks chuck wood? I don’t know, you tell me.

Have a great weekend everyone.
-

The Final Destination was #1 at the box office last weekend for a second week in a row. “9”  landed in movie theaters Wednesday, 9-9-09. I’m looking forward to seeing it with my girls this weekend.

It’s officially football season. Hallelujah. The season kicked off last night with a Steelers victory over the Titans 13-10 in overtime.

President Obama delivered a speech to Congress this week detailing his health care plan. Information about the speech is all over the internet, but I thought the prepared text of the speech published by the New York Times was interesting.

Our pharmacy went through another Siemens upgrade. That’s all I have to say about that.

My hospital blocked my access to Twitter, friendfeed and Microsoft’s Live Mesh. In addition I can no longer access URL shortening sites like bit.ly, is.gd, etc. They were very thorough.

It looks like Dell has thrown their hat in the EMR ring. According to Healthcare IT News “The Round Rock, Texas-based computer maker [Dell] on Thursday introduced an electronic medical record system for hospital-affiliated physician practices. The intent, said Dell executives, is to accelerate the sharing and meaningful use of digital patient information among hospitals and physician practices.”

Healthcare IT Consultant: “pMDsoft, Inc. today announced the completion of over a dozen more HL7 interfaces with some of the most recognized and popular software systems in the medical industry. pMDsoft’s industry-leading interface engine has allowed it to integrate seamlessly with its customers’ existing software infrastructure, eliminating data entry and increasing the accuracy of their claims. The variety of different interfaces available has taken pMDsoft beyond the limits of charge capture, allowing it to act as an elegant EMR front-end; a mobile practice management system; or a gateway to the local hospital.” – Is this really a great thing? Take a look at the HL7 example below and tell me what you think.

At least one person thinks Apple may be trying to push their way into healthcare. No surprise here, considering that Dell and Microsoft are already involved in the healthcare industry.

ASHP is reporting that early trials of the H1N1 virus look promising.

With all the press surrounding H1N1, the CDC has created a set of interim recommendations for the use of antiviral medications during the 2009-2010 influenza season. For more information follow this link to the official CDC site.

Ever heard of the UnSummit? I hadn’t either until this morning. The UnSummit is an annual conference dedicated to barcode medication administration. I’m adding it to my list of conferences to attend in 2010.

I’ve never been a fan of combining an ARB and an ACE inhibitor in CHF. It just never made sense to me even though it was popular among physicians. Medscape , reporting on the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2009, says that “the combination of angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs) and ACE inhibitors should not be used to treat congestive heart failure (CHF), because the benefits do not outweigh the risks, according to the results of a new meta-analysis. Dr Andrea Kuenzli (University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland) reported the findings at the European Society of Cardiology 2009 Congress last week.”

9to5Mac: “In a press release citing a survey of 1,200 US students conducted by higher education-specialist research firm, Student Monitor, Parallels claims more than one third (36%) of full-time undergraduates at four-year US colleges and universities already plan to purchase a Mac.” – I’m not surprised by the results of the survey. Earlier this year I took my youngest daughter on a field trip to UCLA and we noticed a large portion of the student population was carrying Mac laptops.

Palm released its latest phone this week; the Pixi. Here’s a little hands on from the GartenBlog.

Check out the interactive Rock Wall at the Hard Rock Café on the Vegas Strip. I’ll be there in November.

Apple announced new iPod products this week, but to my wife’s utter dismay the new iPod Touch is missing a camera. Just so my wife wouldn’t be alone in her misery, Apple also decided not to announce the new “Apple Tablet”. Bummer.

This from the “who cares” category, the PDR Network is reporting that “The iconic PDR drug reference found in every doctor’s office, hospital, and clinic is merging with the Health Care Notification Network (HCNN), the only network that delivers FDA-required drug Alerts to doctors online.” – There is no drug reference more worthless than the PDR. It’s nothing more than a collection of manufacturer propaganda.

mobihealthnews: “According to survey conducted by MDsearch, 53 percent of physicians who responded to the survey said that they own a smartphone, and of that group 63 percent use mobile medical applications. Curiously though, MDSearch did not explain how many physicians actually took part in the survey or other details — so take the numbers as light reading or simply fodder for future research.” – So, physicians using the most advanced smartphone available, i.e. the iPhone, are using it to access healthcare references. Duh!

Have a great weekend everyone.

- Bruno was #1 at the box office last weekend. I can already give you results for next week, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. “Potter” brought in just over $22 million on opening night.

- Florence dot com (Barbara Olson) offered an interesting look at how the medication use system resembles a bunch of train cars linked together. According to the blog “medication error literature suggests that errors originating in the prescribing car account for about 40% of all errors and represent 28% of harm-causing errors.” Many of these errors get caught by pharmacists and never reach the patient, but several errors still manage to squeeze through the cracks. CPOE is introduced as one possible means to reducing the number of errors reaching the pharmacy. This in turn reduces the number of errors that get through the cracks. Barbara goes on to give a great synopsis of information that should be included on each and every prescription (i.e. drug, dose, route, frequency, indication, etc,).

- Pharmacy Technology Resources (PTR) takes a look at how independent pharmacy can stay competitive in an ever changing market place. I remember working for a compounding pharmacy in San Jose during the first few years of my career. Their specialization in compounding, specifically veterinarian compounding, allowed them to not only stay alive, but thrive in an area ruled by large chain pharmacies. I loved working at that little compounding pharmacy. It still ranks as one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.

- It appears that nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery isn’t such a good thing after all. A recent article in The Annals of Pharmacotherapy states that “the use of NRT in a postoperative CABG surgery population resulted in a significant increase in mortality when adjusted for baseline characteristics.” Of course, the article was the result of a small retrospective study in a 22-bed cardiothoracic surgery ICU. Still, it’s worth taking note of the information.

-A recent article in JAMA suggests that the use of corticosteroids in severe sepsis may reduce short-term mortality [again]. Treatment with steroids appeared to increase the reversal of shock and reduce ICU stay without significantly increasing complications. Corticosteroid use in severe sepsis has been a hot topic since I graduated from pharmacy school. Opinion changes every few years. For now, it appears we have a green light for use. Who knows what developments will spring to life next week?

- The Angry Pharmacist talks about how pharmacy has turned into a profession fighting with everyone, including patients, doctors, insurance companies, other pharmacies and technology. The blog is an interesting and slightly entertaining read, but not for the faint of heart.

-Life in the Fast Lane offers some great advice on how to handle information overload. Tips include using a feed aggregator to pull all your information to a single location, going mobile with smartphones and podcasts, and my favorite piece of advice, “relax”.

- Hoping to improve census data, India plans to fit every citizen with a biometirc ID card containing all sorts of personal data. Really? That’s over one billion biometic ID cards. Good luck.

- Apple is at it again as they have filed patent applications for object and facial recognition on the iPhone. What will they think of next? I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to what ever it is.

- The Mac tablet rumor generated lots of interest around the “tablet” form factor this week. Because I love the idea of “tablets”, I thought I would provide links to articles I found interesting this week:
1. Matt Miller: Can Apple Make Tablets Viable?
2. ‘ReiterPad’ Beats CrunchPad, Apple Tablet
3. Entelligence: Why the pen isn’t mightier than the keyboard
4. Motion Extends Superior Display Technology to the C5 and F5
5. GBM InkShow: Motion Computing J3400 vs Fujitsu ST6012 Head to Head
6. Apple Tablet to have PA Semi Chip? Two processor teams at Apple?

Have a great weekend everyone.