Laying the foundation for your technology implementation team

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the right way to go about putting new technology into a pharmacy. Making the decision to add technology doesn’t mean running out and purchasing a million-dollar piece of equipment and shoving it in a corner. It’s much more complicated than that. You must first lay the foundation for … Read more

Thoughts on my time with DoseEdge Pharmacy Workflow Manager 

Yesterday, I had a great opportunity to spend the day using DoseEdge in its native environment. That is to say, I staffed at a facility that was using DoseEdge in its cleanroom to prepare CSPs, including patient-specific products as well as stock bags, TPNs, etc. I’ve used DoseEdge for brief periods in the past. I’ve … Read more

Does charge-on-chart hurt or help medication chain of custody?

Historically, hospital pharmacies have used a charge-on-dispense (COD) model for medications. The model charges the patient for a medication when it is dispensed from the pharmacy and credits the medication if it’s returned to the pharmacy unused. Simple, but labor-intensive. The model itself has been around for a long time. The introduction of electronic health … Read more

Use of digital pills to measure opioid ingestion [article]

Here’s an interesting article from the January 13 issue of the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR): Digital Pills To Measure Opioid Ingestion Patterns In Emergency Department Patients With Acute Fracture Pain: A Pilot Study (1) A group of researchers out of Boston utilized digital pills (eTectRx, Newbury, FL, USA) to observe the ingestion patterns … Read more

Someone please disrupt controlled substance storage technologies

Management of controlled substances(1) inside acute care pharmacies is a mess. It’s difficult for me to stress how utterly disappointed I am by this area of pharmacy technology. The technology has been around for a long time. The controlled substance area of the pharmacy was one of the first areas to start using technology as part … Read more

Cool Technology for pharmacy – Linked Visibility Inventory System (LVIS)

The Intelliguard® Linked Visibility Inventory Systemâ„¢, or LVIS for short, is an RFID-enabled anesthesia cart designed for use by anesthesiology providers in the OR. I spoke about this briefly in my last podcast. LVIS is a free-standing cart with three drawers – one large and two small. The cart looks quite different from any of … Read more

JerryFahrni.com Podcast | Episode 14: Update from ASA 2016

Show Notes: Host: Jerry Fahnri, Pharm.D. Just a quick update from Jerry’s visit to Chicago for ANESTHESIOLOGY 2016, October 22-25, 2016. Items discussed in podcast: Intelliguard Linked Visibility Inventory System (LVIS) BD Intelliport (I’ve written about this before here) Codonics ePosters Current setup: Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone – Blackout Edition Dragonpad Pop Filter Sony MDR-V150 … Read more

JerryFahrni.com Podcast | Episode 13: HCP Chicago

  Show Notes: Host: Jerry Fahnri, Pharm.D. This is actually Episode 13. My apologies, but the volume is very low for some reason. A brief discussion of Jerry’s presentation at Health Connect Partners (HCP) in Chicago on October 18, 2016, followed by a brief overview of some of the products he saw while at the … Read more

Sensor-enabled medication inhalers

I recall being really excited about sensor-enabled asthma inhalers several years ago. I even remember giving a presentation in 2013 on “the future of pharmacy” that included two such products: Asthmapolis and GeckoCap. Each was an add-on device for existing inhalers. They were marketed as tools for improving medication adherence, and by default helpful in … Read more

The scope of IV room errors

There’s an interesting article in Pharmacy Practice News this month (In the IV Room, Robots Come to the Rescue). While the title of the article is a bit misleading – I think ‘rescue’ is a bit strong – it does contain quite a bit of good information. The article discusses some of the technology being … Read more