Data

Sutter Health partners with Qventus for real-time analytics

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FierceHealthcare: “That’s what led them to invest in a new platform that went beyond algorithms and software to emphasize the data’s tangible impact on clinician workflow and hospital operations… Although Sutter Health has worked with the company [Qventus] on several other initiatives targeting patient throughput, the pharmacy pilot is the system’s first significant foray into … Read more

EHRs are an untapped, but almost impossible to use, health resource

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We’re all familiar with the promise of “big data” in healthcare. Crud, I’m a huge fan of using data. I think the amount of information inside an EHR has the potential to do a lot of wonderful things, not only for healthcare in general but specifically for a pharmacist. How many kinetic consults have been … Read more

Increased IV production means increased automation…and data

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Interesting timing on this article at Healthcare IT News: “With an eye on improving safety, increasing compliance and reducing waste, an increasing number of hospitals and health systems are looking to insource and automate their IV compounding processes… Campbell said that the transition to robotic sterile compounding has resulted in a cost savings of $100,000…At … Read more

Google improves symptom search

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I’m sure most of you have Googled for medical advice at one time or another. I know I’ve performed quick Google searches for healthcare information, including specific drug information. It turns out that a lot of people search for symptoms online, and the information isn’t always helpful. Sometimes a little information can send people’s minds … Read more

Using data to build proactive drug error prevention models

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“Data is variously described as the oxygen of the digital economy or the new raw material of the 21st century.“-Nigel Shadbolt

There are more than a few issues with today’s medication order entry systems. However, in this post I want to focus on only two.

First, alert fatigue. As a pharmacist that has entered his fair share of orders I can tell you that alert fatigue is real. Order entry systems, including CPOE, are designed to indiscriminately alert users of every possible problem associated with the patient’s profile and the order being entered. When entering orders for a patient with complex medical conditions, this can become a bit frustrating because a majority of these alerts are of little to no value. After a while you begin to blow through alerts because so many are simply a waste of your time. Unfortunately, when this happens you will occasionally miss something important. It happens.

Second, the “perfect medication error”.(1) This occurs when a physician inadvertently utilizes CPOE to order the wrong medication for a patient – or the right drug for the wrong patient – but the order meets all the necessary checks and balances to end up on the medication profile, i.e. no allergies, meets all appropriate dosing parameters, there are no drug-drug interactions, labs are fine, and so on. This is an issue that appeared on my radar while performing an FMEA for a CPOE implementation when I was still working as an IT pharmacist.

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It’s time for pharmacy to find ways to collect and share information

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Regardless of what everyone thinks, the healthcare industry is in the infancy of “big data”. The concept isn’t new, but we still have a long way to go, especially in pharmacy. I recall sitting at conferences years ago listening to sessions describing data collection and manipulation. The problem has been that data, especially that found in pharmacies is scattered across disparate systems without an effective method for connecting the dots. The adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) has made things better, but much of the data collected in an average acute care pharmacy is outside the EHR’s reach.  And to say that most pharmacies have their collective heads buried in the sand, would be putting it kindly.

Those on the outside often find it difficult to understand the sheer volume of data that’s produced in a pharmacy. Unfortunately, the data sources are mostly stored in disparate systems creating silos, which makes each system blind to the others. Is is possible to connect the systems and exchange data? Sure, but few if any are doing it.

Data sources in pharmacies come from places like clinical interventions, inventory management, cost containment strategies, regulatory compliance, internal communications, and so on.

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Cool Pharmacy Technology – Aesynt REINVENT [it’s about the data]

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Data surrounds us. We’re deluged by it in every facet of our lives, from the bank statements we receive in our personal life to the mountains of data collected in healthcare. Regardless of the data collected, there are basically three things that can be done with the information. It can be ignored, archived, or used. Unfortunately only one of those three things is truly meaningful, using it.

Many, especially in pharmacy, chose to ignore or archive data rather than use it. That’s not because the information isn’t valuable, but rather because they are overwhelmed with the amount of information they receive and simply have no idea what to do with it. Throw in the fact that the more data we collect, the more useful it becomes, and things get weird. Seems counterintuitive, but data collected from a single source, say one pharmacy i.v. room, offers little value.

Single source data creates several problems, such as potential bias, the inability to find trends that may be available in larger data sets, and failure to create usable comparisons to others that may offer insight into improved operations. Only when data is collected from several different sources does one truly begin to understand its value.

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Do patients in the U.S. really own their healthcare data?

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Yesterday I was reading through my Twitter stream when I came across a brief exchange between Eric Topol (@EricTopol)  and Farzad Mostashari (@Farzad_MD). Both are big names in the digital healthcare space.

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Cool Technology for Healthcare – GPS SmartSole

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Yep, you read the right, GPS-enabled insoles for your shoes. Very interesting concept when you stop to consider the potential benefits of such technology in healthcare, i.e. think Alzheimer’s for one, although the use cases are expansive.

Up until a couple of weeks ago I had never heard of the GPS SmartSole, but apparently they’ve been around for a while. According to the company website – GTX Corp – the product has been around since 2008. Who knew?

The technology gives users the ability to track individual’s location via any smartphone, tablet, or other web-enabled device. Caregivers can even configure the system to send text and email alerts when the user leaves a designated area. Of course it only works if the user is wearing their shoes.

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Podcast | The Garage – Episode 1

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Welcome to The Garage, a podcast of me and my brother talking about various things.  We have great conversations and have talked about recording them for years. We finally decided to do it.

In Episode 1 of The Garage we talk about smartphones, cloud storage, Office 365, a bit about healthcare, tablets – mostly the new iPad Air and iPad Mini – the use of RSS, and data consumption. In other words, we’re all over the board.

Forgive my heavy nose breathing as I had no idea that I sounded like a bull snorting before a charge. I’ll work on that.

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