While not directly related to pharmacy, the SurgiCount Safety-Sponge System is kinda’ cool. The system uses low-tech barcode technology to prevent surgical sponges from being left behind in patients. Simple yet effective. “The system uses sterile bar-coded sponges and a computer tablet loaded with proprietary software to ensure that all sponges are tracked. After approximately 11… Read More »
I’ve been at the ASHP Summer Meeting in Denver this week roaming the exhibit hall looking for interesting new products. One product that caught my attention was TraySafe by Aethon. TraySafe is a medication tray management system. There are several such systems currently on the market, but what makes TraySafe different is its approach to… Read More »
So much happens each and every week that it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Here are some of the taps that are open in my browser this morning along with some random thoughts…. The coffee mug to the right was part of a Pharmacy Week swag bag when I was still a real pharmacist. Pharmacy Week… Read More »
Recently I’ve heard of hospitals having problems with barcodes on pre-mixed IV bags. The problem isn’t related to the legibility or quality of the barcodes, but rather the location and/or the information contained within the barcode itself.
ScanAvert is an application that uses the camera on your cell phone to read product bar codes and compare the ingredients to a personalized allergy list on the company website. The product was launched at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco this week and is apparently still in the beta phase. Consumers register for… Read More »
Our facility is gearing up to implement bar code medication administration (BCMA) in February 2010. Part of getting ready is making sure that all the medications dispensed from the pharmacy are bar code ready. If the medication isn’t bar coded or won’t scan, then it won’t do the nurse much good at the bedside. We’re… Read More »
One of the questions marks surrounding BCMA, known as MAK in Siemens language, is how to label pediatric oral syringes. Unlike most adult unit-dosed medications, pediatric dosages come in a variety of sizes. Where an adult patient may receive 25mg of captopril, a pediatric patient may receive a range of doses based on weight (0.15-0.3… Read More »
As usual there were a lot of things that happened during the week, and not all of it was pharmacy or technology related. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff I found interesting.
Barcode.com: “RFID, or radio frequency technology, uses a tag applied to a product in order to identify and track it via radio waves. The 2 parts that make up the tag are an integrated circuit and an antenna. While the circuit processes and stores information, the antenna transmits signals to the RFID reader, also called… Read More »
9to5mac.com: “RFID reader built into the screen? We’re not quite sure why they’d need to do this (as opposed to putting the reader somewhere else in the device) but Apple has put a patent application on this.” – In addition, the US Patent and Trademark Office lists the following: “The efficient incorporation of RFID circuitry… Read More »