Saturday, September 15th, 2012
In this issue of The Imaginary Journal of Pharmacy Automation and Technology (IJPAT) we take a look at RxAdmix, a system designed to provide barcode scan verification in the IV room. Now why didn’t I think of that? Great concept when you consider the dangers associated with compounding an intravenous medication incorrectly. Doxorubicin? Daunorubicin? Eh, […]
Wednesday, June 20th, 2012
In reference to the following article: Including emergency departments in hospitals’ bar-code-assisted medication administration. Am J Health-Syst Pharm. 2012; 69:1018-1019 (don’t bother trying to access the article unless you have a subscription -#fail) EDs are terrible places for medication administration because the healthcare providers are always in a hurry secondary to the nature of this […]
Saturday, June 16th, 2012
I’ve been meaning to put this up for a while. I thought the infographic below on How Barcode Scanners Work was awesome! WaspBarcode.com: “In our world today, we’re accustomed to seeing barcodes, but most of us don’t have the slightest clue as to how these black and white striped graphics work, or even how they […]
The article below compares medication administration between paper-based medication administration (PBMA), i.e. the traditional method and bar-code medication administration (BCMA). Unfortunately, as is the case with much of the literature in journals these days, the information is quite old. The data for this observational study was collected in two short spans in 2008 and 2009. […]
Friday, September 23rd, 2011
The 2012 unSUMMIT will be held on May 2-4, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Orange County in Anaheim, California. Heck, that’s right in my backyard. Looks like I’ll be attending.
Saturday, April 30th, 2011
I uploaded the presentation I gave Thursday at the unSUMMIT in Louisville, Kentucky. You can see it below, although some of the slides came out a little rough when I uploaded it to slideshare. It looks like it may have something to do with the font I used. If I find time I’ll correct it […]
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
I’m sitting in a hotel bar in Louisville, Kentucky having a salad as I prepare to register for the unSUMMIT. This is the second year in a row I’ve made the trek to the unSUMMIT. I felt that the experience I had last year was definitely worth a second look. From the unSUMMIT website: Conventional […]
During my time as an IT pharmacist I was fortunate enough to be part of two Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) groups; one for CPOE and another for BCMA. The FMEA process is labor intensive and time consuming, but well worth the effort in my opinion. In both the CPOE and BCMA instances several […]
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
There’s an interesting article in the February 2011 issue of The Annals of Pharmacotherapy dealing with BCMA and what the author describes as “clinical workarounds”.1 Abstract BACKGROUND: Bar code medication administration (BCMA) technology is gaining acceptance for its ability to prevent medication administration errors. However, studies suggest that improper use of BCMA technology can yield […]
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010
The National Drug Code, or NDC number as it’s affectionately called in pharmacy, is a set of numbers used to uniquely identify “human drugs and biologicals“. Every pharmacist is familiar with the NDC number, but if you’re not it’s basically a unique number assigned to each package of medication. It’s an 11 digit number in […]