I had planned on blogging daily during the Summer Meeting, but obviously that didn’t happen. Perhaps it was the big dinner I had yesterday evening followed by the insanely good gelato that put me into a food comma, or then again maybe it was just laziness. Regardless, I skipped a day.
The Summer Meeting continues to roll on with some great sessions and lots of interesting conversation. All-in-all between yesterday and today I’ve attended the following:
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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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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I’ve been conversing with several pharmacists about the future of pharmacy practice, specifically about the PPMI developed earlier this year by ASHP. This is a sharp group of people, but what I continually hear is the same thing I’ve heard for a number of years. While I’m not as experienced as many of my esteemed colleagues due to a late start to my career, I have worked in several acute care facilities. I’m not sure who said it, but Einstein gets credit for defining insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
The literature presented in support of a new practice model is, in reality, based on current practice. It’s all looking at how best to apply the pharmacist’s current knowledge and resources to the current practice model. Economic outcomes improved by a pharmacist; great, but not new. Improved patient outcomes with a pharmacist in a team approach; awesome, but not new. Use a pharmacist as a prescriber; cool idea, but not new. These models are easily ten years old and we’re still talking about them as if they were new ideas. See a trend here? I think this is exactly what Einstein had in mind when he defined insanity.
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It’s been a busy week, and pretty much all my attention was focused on the ASHP Midyear event in Anaheim, California. Of course as a pharmacist that’s where my focus should have been, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the world stopped moving. Here are some of the things I found interesting this week:
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Here I sit in the airport on my way home as another great ASHP Midyear has come to a close. This feels strangely familiar. Anyway, the end of the Midyear meeting is always bittersweet. I’ve taken in about all the information my brain can possibly handle, but each day at Midyear brings something new and exciting, which I will miss. Many attendees departed prior to the final sessions today so it was a virtual ghost town compared to the previous days of the event. The exhibit hall was closed, the small stands for food and drink were gone, the line for coffee was non-existent and session attendance was clearly affected. With all that said, it was still worth hanging around for the final session. Huh, I had to, I was presenting at it; more on that later.
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Ah yes, another day of ASHP Midyear is in the books and it just keeps getting better with each passing day. Today was probably the busiest day I’ve had since arriving on Saturday, and it went something like this:
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Today was a great day to be at ASHP Midyear 2010. Things really got going as the sessions were kicked into high gear and the exhibit hall officially opened.
I spent the day tracking down pharmacy automation and technology. Did you really expect me to do anything else? I don’t ever recall being as excited as a clinician as I am being an informatics pharmacist. Anyway, here are some things I found interesting:
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Each day at ASHP Midyear offers some great experiences, and today was no exception.
I spent a good part of my first morning at the Talyst User Group Meeting. It’s encouraging to speak with other pharmacists that use pharmacy automation and technology in interesting ways. User Groups are a great way to get focused information from end users. I always take something away from groups like this. I wish there was a way to apply the format to other areas of pharmacy informatics.
Following the user group meeting I spent some time roaming around the exhibits. Yes, before they’re open “to the public”; vendor badge. While the exhibits weren’t complete, they certainly offered a glimpse of what I can expect for the rest of the week. It also gave a me a good idea of who I’d like to visit and spend some time talking too. It’s always interesting to talk with the vendors in person. Sometimes you can get information that you simply can’t find anywhere else.
I did manage to attend a single session today titled A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Telepharmacy. I haven’t spent much time learning about telepharmacy so I thought this would be a good opportunity to gain some knowledge. To my surprise it turns out that telepharmacy isn’t at all what I thought it was. One of the first slides in the presentation defined telepharmacy as “a central pharmacy, either retail or associated with a hospital, is connected via computer, audio, and video link to one or more remote sites. A licensed pharmacist at the central site conducts remote order entry and then supervises the dispensing of medication at the remote site through the use of video conferencing technology.” (Darryl Rich, The Joint Commission, 2007). Huh? I thought telepharmacy would represent a more clinical approach to patient care through the use of audio and video.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services defines telemedicine as “the use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve a patient’s health. Electronic communication means the use of interactive telecommunications equipment that includes, at a minimum, audio and video equipment permitting two-way, real time interactive communication between the patient, and the physician or practitioner at the distant site.” I assumed telepharmacy would basically be the same thing. Guess not. The Joint Commission definition of telepharmacy stated above is simply remote checking. I’m not sure I like that.
At least my day ended on a positive note. I had dinner with a friend at a great little Mexican restaurant called Tortilla Jo’s in Downtown Disney. We spent a couple of hours talking about all kinds of stuff including pharmacy, informatics/automation and life. Good stuff.
Here’s looking forward to tomorrow.
