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.
Read more …
“What’d I miss?” – Week of December 20th
Find a clinical trial using your iPhone
Healthcare IT Consultant: “Buoyed by the encouraging use of its PHR and Twitter based Clinical Trial matching service, TrialX is readying to release its iPhone application this month. This application, designed for doctors and patients, further underscores TrialX’s commitment to drive technology enabled consumer-driven healthcare. Using the TrialX iPhone App, doctors can search for clinical trials that their patients may be eligible for and email the results to the patients right away. They can filter clinical trials by location, medical condition, treatment, institution conducting the trial and other parameters. Similarly, patients and/or their loved ones can use this application to search for clinical trials. A video demo and screenshots of the new application are available at TrialX Mobile (http://trialx.com/mobile).” - You can search for clinical trials at the TrialX website as well. In addition, TrialX can identify clinical trials that may fit your condition based on your Google Health or MicrosoftVault profile. Take a second to browse around their site, it’s pretty slick.
Apparently some pharmacists are worried about personal health records
Healthcare IT Consultant Blog: “Pharmacists’ representatives have claimed that use of private health record services such as Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault could risk fragmentation of electronic patient records. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain said “the proliferation of these systems and indiscriminate use” could lead to information on drug allergies, possible interactions, duplications or dose adjustments not being available when it was needed. The society, which was responding to a consultation by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics on medical profiling and online medicine, said there could be “serious patient safety implications”. It argued that the single health record supports the seamless transfer of care between primary and secondary settings and promoted multi- disciplinary working.” - I don’t necessarily agree with “the society” about personal health records. Personal health records – like medication lists carried in wallets, purses, and pockets – serve as additional information to an already detailed health system record. The technology is in its infancy and further growth and development should be encouraged. I believe it empowers the individual with enough control to become interested in their own care. I wouldn’t remove a patient allergy from the pharmacy system based solely on the information in a patient’s personal medical record, but would certainly investigate the opposite. First hand information directly from the patient is a valuable commodity. I remember interviewing patients upon admission to Long/Moffit Hospital on the UCSF campus when I was a 4th year pharmacy student. Many times asking the right questions led to the patient remembering something they had forgotten. If that information would have been in a digital personal medical record, the patient’s lack of memory becomes a non-issue. UCSF had the luxury of 30 pharmacy students running around talking to patients. Most hospitals aren’t so lucky.
“What’d I miss?” – Week of August 2
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.
Read more …
