Jerry Fahrni

Talyst has been beta-testing a new customer portal for several months now. The idea was introduced to Talyst customers at their user group meeting during the ASHP Summer Meeting in Chicago last June. Beta-testing took place between the summer meeting and December 2009 when Talyst unveiled the portal to a larger user group meeting in Las Vegas at the ASHP Midyear. Attendees were given a demonstration of the portal and offered an opportunity to provide feedback on possible issues or features they’d like to see. Well, it appears that the portal is out of the beta phase and ready for use.

Read more…

As I’ve mentioned before our AutoCarousel system from Talyst utilizes barcode scanners from Code Corp, specifically the Code Reader 3.0 (CR3). As you my or not be aware, I’ve been working with Code Corp and Talyst over the past several months in an attempt to replace our aging CR3 with Code Corps newest version of the scanner, the Code Reader 3500.

The Code Reader 3500 uses newer technology over the CR3 and performs much better with our carousel. The reader is easier to use due to its wider target area and “reflection and glare reducing illumination”. It’s also quite a bit faster. The technicians love it.
Read more…

Tonight’s ASHP activity consisted of attending the Talyst User Group. It was a pretty big turnout, probably three times the size of the one I attended in Chicago in June.
Read more…

I spent the day attending the following educational sessions:

Where did My Mumps Job Scheduler (MJS) Go? – This was a pretty basic “how-to” session covering the new job scheduler, Cache, used in the latest version of the pharmacy system. Boring, but helpful.

Integrating Siemens Pharmacy to Maximize the Pharmacist Role – This was the most interesting presentation of the day, by far. Yakima Valley Memorial hospital is located in Yakima, Washington. Their pharmacy department is clinically solid and technologically advanced. They make extensive use of various custom pharmacy system reports to monitor antibiotic therapy, follow patients with poor glycemic control, and follow-up on patients with questionable orders. In addition, Yakima is in the process of writing advanced rules against their pharmacy system to track patients receiving warfarin therapy with no INR within the previous 24 hours. The warfarin monitoring is necessary to meet National Patient Safety Goal 3E. Much of the information is practical and can be reproduced at my facility.

Hitting the Mark with MAK! – Everyone wants to learn more about MAK, Siemens BCMA solution, and there have been presentations on just about every aspect of the system. This was no exception as the entire presentation was on how to develop a project plan for MAK implementation. This one nearly put me to sleep.

Leveraging MAK/MAR Integration to Achieve Increased Operational Efficiency – Centra State Healthcare System has done some pretty amazing things with their MAK data and the electronic medication administration record (MAR) found in Soarian. Soarian is Siemens system for collecting and displaying clinical information such as labs, allergies, patient assessments, physician notes, etc. Centra managed to create an integrated solution that offers physicians a one-stop-shop for clinical information as well as previous, current, and future medication administration. I was impressed. It appears I have a little reading to do when I get home.

I spent most of the afternoon talking with other pharmacists about computerized provider order entry (CPOE) and pharmacy automation. One pharmacist from CaroMont Health in Gastonia, NC was particularly interesting as his facility uses almost the exact same setup as ours; Siemens Pharmacy, Pyxis, and Talyst automation. He and I shared quite a bit of information. The time spent talking with other pharmacists was very valuable, possibley more valuable than all the presentations combined. 

Tomorrow is the final day of Innovations ‘09 with more of the same on my agenda. Sessions on my radar for tomorrow include: Extending Patient Safety with MAK Beyond the Acute Inpatient Setting, Building the Bridge between MAK and Soarian, and Raising the Bar for Patient Safety. After that, it will be time to pack up and head for the airport; until then.

I just finished my last session of the day here in Philadelphia, and overall I would have to say it was a productive one.

My first session today was an update on various future enhancements to both the Siemens Pharmacy System and their barcode medication administration system (BCMA), fondly referred to as MAK. The future enhancements bring much needed functionality to a system that, in my opinion, wasn’t ready for prime time.
Read more…

One day last week I was driving home and happened by a school that doubles as a community swimming pool in the summer. The street had several large speed bumps, forcing me to move rather slowly. I’m usually irritated by speed bumps because they slow me down. This day, however, I was happy they were there because a little boy darted out in front of me. I drive a ¾ ton Ford f250 crew cab pick-up. It’s big and heavy. I have serious doubts that a child would stand much of a chance if they went head-to-head with my truck. Fortunately I was coasting along at a safe 10 MPH secondary to the speed bumps and easily came to a stop at a comfortable distance away. At that moment I was thankful for the safety feature built into the pavement on the road, i.e. the speed bumps.

Read more…

Healthcare IT News: “The economy is forcing hospitals to consider delaying or scaling back their IT projects, according to a survey of America’s “most wired” hospitals and health systems.The Most Wired Survey, conducted annually by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine, the journal of the American Hospital Association, found that even with incentives being made available to implement IT, hospitals  still have a long way to go.”
Read more…

I had reason to do some thinking about healthcare automation over the weekend, and after much thought decided that healthcare, specifically pharmacy, was a little strange in several ways. As an industry, healthcare rarely looks beyond patient safety when talking about technology and automation. Let’s face it, patient safety is the rally cry for any department in need of a jumpstart to complete a project that has stalled for one reason or another. Unfortunately the investment of time, energy and capital resources typically stops immediately after implementation secondary to meeting the patient safety goal. However, this model seldom allows for technology and automation to be taken to the next logical step.
Read more…

This has been an interesting and exciting day so far. I spent the morning at the ASHP exhibit hall looking at two products that had piqued my interest the day before: AutoCool and AutoSplit from Talyst.
Read more…

Today was my first official day at the ASHP Summer Meeting in Chicago. I spent the first half of the day in the exhibit hall checking out the vendors and all the cool stuff they had on display. The exhibit hall wasn’t open to everyone, but I had the unexpected surprise of receiving a vendor’s badge. Many of the exhibits weren’t ready for “prime time”, so I plan on returning tomorrow for a closer look.

The second half of the day was spent at the Talyst User Group Meeting. The meeting covered several great topics, but centered around advances in Talyst’s AutoPharm software geared toward patient safety and a new customer portal that will offer access to articles, product updates and valuable customer forums for open discussion. Both items should be available by the end of the year.