CPOE failure modes and effects analysis brings up some good questions

 CPOE  13 Responses »
Nov 092010
 

A Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is basically a methodology for predicting potential pitfalls in a project and preemptively finding solutions. This is in contrast to a root cause analysis (RCA) in which case you figure out what went wrong after the fact. Kind of like asking “what could make a plane crash and how to prevent it?” (=FMEA) versus “what made the plane crash and how do we prevent it from happening again?” (=RCA).

My current position is the first in which I’ve been involved in an FMEA, and I’ve personally found them to be powerful tools. We did an FMEA prior to implementation of our BCMA system and came up with what I thought was a pretty good list of things to look out for. Of course what the administration chooses to do with that information is a different story, but at least it’s available if needed.
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 Posted by Jerry Fahrni at 9:22 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

Impressive offerings in the new edition of ACI eJournal

 Pharmacy Informatics  No Responses »
Oct 042010
 

The third issue of the eJournal Applied Clinical Informatics (ACI) is available online and it’s packed with some pretty interesting stuff. Even though CPOE and CDS have been topics for discussion for quite sometime, they’ve somehow managed to fly under the radar for the most part.

Here’s some stuff on CPOE and CDS in the third edition of ACI that caught my eye:

 Posted by Jerry Fahrni at 9:01 pm  Tagged with: ,

Update: Siemens Innovations 2010 final day

 CPOE, Siemens  8 Responses »
Aug 112010
 

Today is my final Day at Innovations and I’ve managed to pick up quite a bit of good, useful information that has the potential to improve our operations back at the hospital. I’ve been in my current position as an IT pharmacist for about 2 1/2 years now and this is my third Innovations conference. I finally have enough experience under my belt to start putting the pieces together in a manner that allows me to gather information in a more strategic fashion, rather than just running around trying to gather enough information to put out fires.

This years Innovations conference was heavy with sessions on ARRA, meaningful use and CPOE. I’m not surprised as this is where all the money will be for vendors involved in HIT over the next several years.

Anyway, I feel there are a couple of presentations I attended yesterday that are worth mentioning.
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 Posted by Jerry Fahrni at 8:29 am  Tagged with: , ,

Update: Siemens Innovations 2010 – Day 1

 Pharmacy Informatics, Siemens  No Responses »
Aug 092010
 

Today was the first real working day at Innovations. Yesterday was taken up by all the registration stuff that you have to do when you arrive at a conference, and the welcome reception. Most of the morning was fairly benign as a good chunk of it was taken up by the opening session. I’m not a big fan of opening sessions as they tend to all sound the same. However, I did manage to squeeze in a couple of good sessions in addition to spending some time at the expo. I general love roaming the expo, but this year’s vendor selection is quite small and not really that interesting. It only took me about an hour to run through all the booths and collect a little reading material for later.

One unplanned event that I have to mention was the pleasure of eating breakfast next to Johnathan Paul, a senior engineer in enterprise R & D at Siemens. He casually sat down next to me this morning and asked me what sessions I was planning on attending. I promptly gave him my spiel about attending the various pharmacy sessions, but in addition I lamented the fact that I was going to miss the presentation on “Virtualization, Cloud Computing, SOA, Elasticity, De-Duplication…What Do These Technical Terms Really Mean and How Do We Apply Them?” because it was at the same time as the pharmacy update. I didn’t know at the time, but he was the presenter for that session. After I got past my initial embarrassment we had a great conversation about many of the topics he planned to cover. I came away with some great information and knowledge that Siemens is doing things behind the scenes that makes me downright giddy.
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 Posted by Jerry Fahrni at 5:12 pm  Tagged with: , , , , ,

Quick Hit – CPOE, a pharmacist’s time and laughter

 CPOE, Pharmacy Informatics  8 Responses »
Jul 262010
 

We’ve finally stepped off the curb and are moving full speed ahead with our CPOE implementation. As a result I spent quite a bit of time last week with our Siemens assigned CPOE consultant. He’s a pharmacist which makes things nice because we understand each other and speak the same language.

The goal of one of the meetings I attended last week was to discuss the resources necessary to implement a CPOE system. Needless to say the project is going to be resource heavy. When it came time to tease out the IT pharmacist part of the project I was a little surprised at what I heard. The time requirements weren’t surprising – several hundred hours – but where the pharmacist fits into the entire scheme was.
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 Posted by Jerry Fahrni at 7:21 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

Is the 30-minute rule for medication administration good or bad?

 Medication Safety  5 Responses »
Jul 052010
 

The June 17, 2010 issue of ISMP Medication Safety Alert I received has an interesting article on the unintended negative consequences of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) regulation requiring medications to be administered within 30 minutes of their scheduled dosing time. I’m sure that the CMS 30-minute rule was created with good intentions in mind, but in reality it creates a lot of anxiety and bad habits. According to the ISMP article, the CMS 30-minute rule “may be causing unintended consequences that adversely affect medication safety. While following the 30-minute rule may be important to hospitals, many nurses find it difficult to administer medications to all their assigned patients within the 30-minute timeframe. This sometimes causes nurses to drift into … unsafe work habits.” Those unsafe work habits include removing meds from automated dispensing cabinets (ADC) for multiple patients at once, removing meds ahead of time, falsifying documentation to meet the 30-minute rule and preparing doses ahead of time; all dangerous practices.
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 Posted by Jerry Fahrni at 8:32 am  Tagged with: , , , , ,

“What’d I miss?” – Week of June 27

 What'd I miss  No Responses »
Jul 022010
 

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.
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 Posted by Jerry Fahrni at 11:12 am  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

“What’d I miss?” – Week of May 30, 2010

 What'd I miss  1 Response »
Jun 042010
 

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.
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 Posted by Jerry Fahrni at 11:16 pm  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Top blog posts and searches from last week

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
May 312010
 

I always find it interesting to see what brings someone to my website and what they decided to read once they get here. Most of the time it isn’t pharmacy related at all. Funny how that works.

Most read posts over last week:

  1. Medscape Mobile for the BlackBerry – This has appeared at or near the top for the past couple of weeks. It’s a testament to how many healthcare professionals are still carrying BlackBerry devices.
  2. iPad + ClamCase = awesomeness? – This is funny. All I have to do is put the word “iPad” anywhere in a post and people flock to it.
  3. CPOE – Giving it some thought – CPOE is gaining some traction for sure.
  4. Cool Technology for Pharmacy – LXE Bluetooth Ring Scanner – I sat on this one for quite a while. Couldn’t decide if I wanted to blog about it or not.
  5. RxCalc 1.1 now available for the iPhone and iPod Touch – Similar to “iPad”. Put the word “iPhone” somewhere in the post and people will find it.
  6. “What’d I miss?” – Week of May 23, 2010
  7. Cool Technology for Pharmacy – This was before I started putting the name of the cool technology in the blog title. This particular post was from Jun 18, 2009 and covered Alaris Smartpumps.
  8. Best iPhone / iPod Touch Applications for Pharmacists – Ibid, iPhone & iPad. It’s been a while. I should really update this information.
  9. Curriculum Vitae – I see this show up high up on the list occasionally. I believe young pharmacists are looking for an example of how to compose a CV. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to write one; still don’t know if I have it right. I can never figure out how much information to include or what should be excluded.
  10. “What’d I miss?” – Week of May 17,2010

Top searchterm phrases for last week

  1. “medscape.com/blackberry”
  2. “autopharm”
  3. “alaris”
  4. “jerry fahrni”
  5. “black cloud”
  6. “cloud computing”
  7. +”magnetic resonance imaging” + “cool image”
  8. “alaris infusion pump”
  9. “dell xt”
  10. “carousel for meds” tied with “medscape mobile”
 Posted by Jerry Fahrni at 9:03 pm  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

CPOE – Giving it some thought

 Medication Safety, Pharmacy Informatics  No Responses »
May 252010
 

Computerized Provider – or Physician if you like – Order Entry (CPOE) is an older technology that has been in the spotlight for the better part of the past year thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and key components of meaningful use. Because of the “stimulus” offered by ARRA many hospitals across the United States will be gearing up to implement CPOE, ready or not. Currently less than 20% of the hospitals in the United States are using CPOE, and only a small fraction of those are using it for all orders throughout their facility (AJHP. 2008; 65:2244-64).
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 Posted by Jerry Fahrni at 4:11 pm  Tagged with: ,
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