I read an interesting discussion about pharmacovigilance (PV) software a few weeks ago on one of the pharmacy listservs I belong to. The conversation struck me as odd because much of it sounded an awful lot like a discussion on clinical decision support (CDS). This led me to wonder whether or not PV and CDS are the same thing, completely different or subsets of one another. I am not familiar with the term PV myself, so I set out to gather some information. And here’s what I found.
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Pharmacovigilance, what’s in a name
Update: Siemens Innovations 2010 Presentation
Today was the big day. I gave my presentation at about 11:00 am and it cleared the room. There were about 100 attendees for the CPOE presentation just prior to mine and about 90 of those people got up and left when it came time for me to do my thing. I guess mobile pharmacy just isn’t interesting to most people.
Anyway, the presentation is below. There is an embedded video near the end that didn’t pull into SlideShare. It’s about a 30 second look at how we use Citrix on the iPad to access various clinical applications. I attempted to upload in to YouTube, but kept getting an error. I’ll try again later. If you want to see the elongated version of the videos simply go to YouTube and type in “Kaweah Delata iPad“, or something similar, and several options will pop up.
Siemens Innovations ’10 here I come
I’m sitting in the airport waiting for my flight. I’m on my way to Orlando for Innovations ’10 for Healthcare IT. Innovations is an annual conference put on by Siemens, who promote themselves as “ a global powerhouse in electronics and electrical engineering, and operates in the industry, energy and healthcare sectors.” The hospital where I work uses several products from Siemens including Siemens Pharmacy, Siemens Medication Administration Check (MKA) and Soarian, which is their clinical information system for physicians and nurses, and the foundation for their CPOE system.
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Slow progress in pharmacy automation and stale technology creates ho-hum interest
Recently I’ve been in bit of a blogging slump. The world of technology suddenly appears a little less exciting. In fact, I find myself thinking of current technology as boring. I read lots of blog posts and articles that refer to new technologies as “revolutionary”, but I haven’t seen much revolutionary technology lately. In fact, most of the new technology is simply an iteration of the same theme; or worse, recycling of an old theme.
Consumer technology is clearly ahead of healthcare with the exception of scanning devices like MRIs, which are pretty cool when you stop to think about what they do. However, some of the most recently vaunted consumer technologies are devices aimed at information consumption like the iPad or devices designed to access data and social media while on the go, i.e. the new crop of smartphones. It’s not really new technology per se, but rather a new application of already available technology.
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Quick Hit – CPOE, a pharmacist’s time and laughter
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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AJHP abstracts available for Kindle
I was pleasantly surprised today when I read my ASHP NewsLink and found the following tidbit:
“Download AJHP Abstracts to Kindle Reader – Users of the Kindle wireless reading device, from Amazon.com Inc., can now automatically download abstracts of AJHP articles as they become available.”
AJHP abstracts are delivered directly to the Kindle e-reader via Amazon’s Whispernet for a monthly subscription of $1.99. However, details are a little sketchy as there is limited information available at the Amazon website.
It’s nice to see AJHP embracing digital technology. It’s a little late in the game and only abstracts are currently available, but it’s clearly a step in the right direction. Hopefully this is the first of many new digital offerings from AJHP and ASHP. I would eventually like to see AJHP journal articles available in their entirety for all digital readers. Articles are currently available for download in PDF format, but that’s really not the same as having a document formated for use on an e-reader.
Additional information can be found at the Amazon website here.
Top blog posts and searches from last week (27)
I always find it interesting to see what brings people to my website and what they decided to read once they get here.
Most read posts over the past 7 days:
- An almost disastrous bar-coding mishap
- Cool Technology for Pharmacy – Post from before I started putting the name of the cool technology in the blog title. This particular post was from September 10, 2009 and covered the capsule machine.
- Cool Technology for Pharmacy – Another post from before I started putting the name of the cool technology in the blog title. This particular post was from June 18, 2009 and covered Alaris Smartpumps.
- Best iPhone / iPod Touch Applications for Pharmacists
- Quick Hit – Mobile devices in our pharmacy – This post elicited a couple of interesting comments.
- Curriculum Vitae
- “What’d I miss?” – Week of June 27
- Cool Technology for Pharmacy –NDC Translator
- About -People checking up on me.
- Motion J3500 gets a wicked update – People are still interested in tablet PCs, even with that other device grabbing all the press.
Top searchterm phrases used over the past 7 days:
Using the big boys to search for consumer health information
I’m sure you’ve heard people say “just Google it”. Not only have I heard the phrase, but I’ve used it myself. But how do search engines like Google and Bing work for health related information? Out of simple curiosity I spent a few minutes with Google and Bing to find out.
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What’s the lifespan of a tablet PC in use by pharmacists?
In early September last year (2009) our hospital purchased some Dell XT2 tablets for me to roll out to the pharmacists; I got mine at the same time. My XT2 has performed pretty well for the most part with only an occasional glitch here or there. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for the tablets in use by the pharmacists on the nursing units.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had several complaints from the pharmacists; blue screens, lost wireless configuration, loss of bezel button functions, inability to rotate the screen when in slate mode, etc. Today the ICU pharmacist dropped off his tablet in my office because none of the buttons along the outer bezel would work (CTRL, rotation and tools buttons). It turned out to be an issue with the drivers, but what caught my attention was the condition the poor tablet was in. It’s only been in use for just over 6 months and it looks pretty beat up. Apparently the XT2 isn’t designed to take the rigors of a pharmacists daily routine.
With all the iPads we have running around our hospital now it got me wondering how they’re going to hold up once we start pounding on them day in and day out. I’m guessing not well. I suppose no device is perfect as is so eloquently described by James Kendrik at jkOnTheRun, but I don’t mind saying that I’m more than a little concerned. Oh well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
Just in case you were wondering, the Motion J3400 used by the pediatric pharmacist has held up much better and is still in good shape. That’s something to keep in the back of my mind for the future.
Time to nominate someone for the ASHP PPMI Summit
I briefly touched on the Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative (PPMI) last week. As part of the initiative ASHP will be holding a PPMI Summit in Dallas, Texas, November 7-9, 2010 where a lot of brilliant minds will come together to work towards advancing pharmacy practice.
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