Cyberspace, i.e. the internet is full of information. It’s available via weblogs, online journals, social media, through professional organizations, via webinars and so on. The problem is that the information has no meaningful structure, making it difficult to sift through. What’s worse is trying to figure out what information is reliable and what information isn’t.

Technology websites like Endgaget, for example, are full of information about today’s latest technology ranging from smartphones and tablets to miniature cameras used for gastrointestinal studies. The advantage of such a sight is obvious; it provides one with information on the most up to date cutting edge technology. The downside, however is that the information comes at such a pace that it can be overwhelming. Websites like ASHP.org are a great place to grab information about pharmacy. Although the information is often static, ASHP offers reliable information on the current status of pharmacy practice.

Weblogs, a.k.a. “blogs” are great sources of information under the right circumstances. They provide valuable information, but can be full of commentary that may be based on little more than the author’s opinion. While searching through blogs it’s important not to get too caught up in the information on these sites and make sure that the information is rooted in fact rather than fiction. Blogs from sources like the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and even ASHP are good places to start.

Online journals remain a good source of information; AJHP, NEJM, Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA, Pharmacotherapy, etc. I still read the table of contents of several medical and pharmacy journals. When I find something that looks interesting I dig a little deeper. The downside to online journals is that they often require a subscription to access detailed information. This remains one of the biggest barriers to accessing healthcare information in the modern era. It’s unfortunate that some of the most important information to the profession is isolated behind walls designed to keep people out. Perhaps that will change someday, but for now most online journals still offer free access to abstracts. While not ideal, abstracts can often give you enough information to determine if the article is worth pursuing further.

Social media is fast becoming a favorite method for many to quickly scan through incredible amounts of information. Unfortunately the pitfalls mimic weblogs as the information can often become overwhelming at times as well as contain information that may not be entirely accurate. Beware the self-proclaimed experts. I agree with Jamie Pappas of InformationWeek when she said “One of the things that concerns me the most about social media is that it assigns expertise to too many people. Since a great number of our conversations are indexed and return in search results, you can literally stumble upon anyone’s blog or conversation stream without any context as to who the person is and what his or her background or level of expertise might be.” Be diligent when using social media as a source of information, and be sure to verify information before accepting it as the truth.

Webinars are a good source of information for today’s pharmacist. They allows us to take information that was previously available only to those attending conferences and make it available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection. This is one area where technology has exceeded expectations for granting access to important new information. Companies like Pharmacy OneSource and Baxa offer a host of webinars to meet the interests of almost any pharmacist, and most are free. In my opinion you just can’t beat that combination.

So how does one keep up with all this information? I wish I could say that it’s simple, but nothing could be further from the truth. My advice would be to stick to several sources of internet based information that you feel comfortable with. How you gather that information is up to you.

Several tools, including Really Simple Syndication (RSS) readers like Google Reader, which happens to be my favorite; social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, although I find those tools helpful for different types of information; email alerts and newsletters are available to help you gather information in an organized manner.

RSS Readers – RSS Readers act as a centralized place to collect information – such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, video, etc – in a standardized format. I personally use Google Reader, but there are others out there that do the same thing. The beauty of RSS readers is that they automatically gather information from several sites in one convenient location. The information is easily filtered, viewed, cataloged and read. In addition many RSS readers offer configuration settings that allow one to store articles for future use, send to others via email or quickly share via various social media channels. Many have questioned whether RSS readers remain relevant with the advent of social media, but I find them as useful as ever.

Social Media – The explosion of social media – services like Twitter and Facebook – have created a new generation of informational excess. I see the uses for Twitter and Facebook as fundamentally different, but many people see them as different sides of the same coin. As a whole they give one access to an endless stream of subject matter. Twitter is a fantastic tool and I use it as much as possible. I’ve connected with several people via Twitter that I would have never met otherwise. These people have provided me great insight into a great many subjects and I look forward to reading what they have to say each and every day. Unfortunately, Twitter only gives you 140 characters to get your point across and it’s often difficult to preview links referenced in various Tweets. In addition, not everyone that has something worth saying uses Twitter. I often struggle to keep up with the 200 or so individuals that I follow on Twitter. I can’t imagine trying to keep up with over 10,000.

Creating lists within Twitter can help manage the stream of information. I use lists to target specific information that I may not want cluttering up my Twitter stream. For example, I have a list for pharmacists. While I like to see what pharmacists have to say, many prefer to talk about their personal lives on Twitter. I don’t need that information so I created a list where I can quickly go to scan their tweets. I also have a private list called “friends” where I keep up with what’s going on with people I’m close to. I like to hear what they have to say, but their information can get lost in the thousands of Tweets I receive each day. This way I simply go to my friends list at the end of the day and see what everyone’s been up to. It works quite well. There’s a good introduction to Twitter Lists here.

Email newsletters and alert – Although certainly considered “old school” I still find email alerts and e-newsletters useful. I receive notices from services like POWER-PAK C.E. Medscape News Alerts, Modern Healthcare Breaking News, PharmQD, etc. Much of the information is a repeat of what I’ve already seen via my RSS feed or my Twitter stream, but once in a while I find a gem.

And there you have it, some recommendations on how to keep up in a world of relentless informational overload. I’m sure there are other ways of collecting and filtering information, and if you have one I’d love to hear about it.

Facebook is one of those social media sites that I’ve reserved for light hearted interaction with friends and family. I talk about what I’m up to, share some photos, comment on things here and there, but generally check my professional life at the door. I certainly don’t put anything on Facebook that is inappropriate, but I like keeping some separation between my personal and professional life.

So, do large companies or professional organizations like ASHP belong on Facebook? That question poses an unusual degree of difficulty for me, but in general I don’t think they do. I’m not naïve enough to think that everything on Facebook is private. Greg Leatham says much the same thing in the ASHP Intersection article, “I caution people, especially students, who are often a little more free with what they put on their site, that it doesn’t matter where you plan to work”. You should never put anything online that you woulnd’t want your mom to see or that appears morally or ethically questionable. On occasion I will banter back and forth with my brother (@Fahrni) on Twitter, but it’s light hearted and never contains anything that could be considered inappropriate. And sometimes I’ll leave comments on Facebook giving my nieces a hard time, but I’m their uncle and that’s the kind of fun-loving relationship we have; always in jest.

Becasue I reserve Facebook for personal interactions I typically use Twitter for pharmacy or technology interests. Of course that’s not true 100% of the time, but it is a realtively accurate generalization in my case. Twitter offers both a professional and personal sounding board for me, but my thoughts are limited to 140 characters and the entire Twitter community has a different feel to it when compared to Facebook. Facebook has a more intimate feel in my opinion. I just don’t see following, friending or otherwise becoming engaged with businesses or organizations on Facebook. That doesn’t mean I don’t have colleagues as friends on Facebook. Heck, if you really want to know what I’m up to in my personal life, want to hear about what my kids are up to, or want to see photos of my family, I’d be happy to “friend you”; unless you’re creepy, then you can’t be my friend. Otherwise my Facebook page isn’t the place for you.

I chose to keep separate areas for my professional and personal social media activities. How about you? This is definitely a topic worth discussion and it is probably time to formalize social media education in the pharmacy curriculum. Otherwise we’re looking for trouble down the road. Just a thought.

For some interesting facts and figures about social media use and health care, check out the presentation below by Kevin Clauson. If you want to see where things can go wrong with Facebook go to slides 49-52.

- In the “people are strange” category, Michael Jackson This Is It was #1 at the box office last weekend. My wife and I took in Couples Retreat home today. It was worth the price of admission and it made me laugh. Who could ask for more then that?

- Dave Troy:  “Why Twitter “Lists” Change Everything – Going forward, the primary question will be which specific lists you appear on (influence of curator, quality, scarcity) and, secondarily, how many lists you appear on (reach, influence). Do you think that an author would pay to get onto twitter.com/oprah/incredible-writers? Yeah, I do too. Now imagine that, writ large, and scummier, with people even less reputable than Oprah. Now you see what I’m talking about.” - Wow, what a scary thought.

- BMJ Group blogs:  “The beginning of the end for impact factors and journals. Slowly but surely these metrics [“article level metrics”]  will become much superior to using the impact factor of the journal in which an article is published as a surrogate for the impact of the article itself. Although a routine practice, this is wholly unscientific because there is very little correlation between the impact of a journal and the impact of the articles it publishes—because the impact factor of the journal is driven by a few articles that are very highly cited.” – This is a very interesting article that makes a lot of sense. I highly recommend you read the entire thing when you have a moment.

- HealthDay:  “Let Kids Sleep Late on Weekends to Fight Fat: Study – Researchers in Hong Kong found that children who got less sleep tended to be heavier (as measured by body mass index, or BMI) than children who slept more. But among children who slept less than eight hours a night, those who compensated for their weekday sleep deficit by sleeping late on weekends or holidays were significantly less likely to be overweight or obese.” – Well, that coveres sleeping in on the weekends. Now if they could only prove that watching Scooby-Doo on Saturday morning could decrease your BMI.

- Boy Genius Report: “It’s amazing how a simple double-tap gesture will dramatically change the usability of a touch-screen-based browser. Literally, it’s one thing (besides CPU speed, a great screen obviously, etc.) that makes a big difference. Again, there’s no multi-touch and to be honest, a simple pinch-zoom gesture is really missed.” – Yep, that about sums it up for me. I spent about an hour playing with the DROID in a local Verizon store today and the lack of multi-touch makes the browser experience less than stellar. Too bad really, because it has some great feature. On the other hand, the HTC DROID ERIS by HTC was sitting right next to it and turned out to be a great device. Too bad the screen is only 3.2”.

- Macro Linz: “The web started out as knowledge gathering tools for building archives. Websites, wikis, link repositories like Del.icio.us, an untold number of file archives, search, RSS and all the tools that bring it to you like GoogleReader… All that is the heart of the web. There is little personal connection in knowledge gathering tools though some of them have “social” aspects. They are not about community, but about sharing and collating information.” – This article is well written and brings up some interesting points about the web and social media tools. As I’ve said before, use it however you want, it’s just a tool.

- RxInformatics.com: “A coalition of 9 hospitals implemented best practices for medication administration reporting an astonishing 88% [link] reduction in medication errors. These best practices did not include bar code medication administration (see listing below). CalNOC (the California Nursing Outcomes Coalition) “best practices” for medication administration: 1. Compare medication to medical record 2. Keep medication labeled until administration < 3. Check two forms of patient identification 4. Immediately record medication administration in chart 5. Explain the medication to the patient 6. Minimize distractions and disruptions during the administration process.“ – This post was written by John Poikonen. I’ve mentioned John before because he has an interesting view on bar code medication administration (BCMA). While John and I don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye on the use of BCMA, he makes a great point with his post on low-tech error prevention. None of the methods listed to decrease errors is new, but they are often overlooked. It’s important to remember that technology cannot replace the human factor. Diligence plus technology is a winner though.

- And not to be outdone, Barbara Olson (@SafetyNurse) posted this nice response at Florence dot com: “What the San Francisco nurses really studied is whether adherence to a system designed to elicit a specific outcome yields the desired outcome more often than using a loosely defined, variably employed set of expectations does. Minimizing distractions was an important part of the interventions, but it wasn’t the only one. Understanding that the nurses did not find one “magic bullet,” but rather moved from an “intention-based” process to a process that was both engineered and adhered to helps to explain the very favorable, highly desirable results obtained.” – Good read.

- David Bradley (@sciencebase) has a great post at the sciencetext website that talks about how to decide which Twitter accounts to follow. “Twitter is the place to be online and tips abound. But, how do you decide whether to follow someone who has followed you? There are some basic filters you can use, like not following back obvious spammers and scammers and generally not following people with protected tweets unless you know them already.” He’s gone as far as to create a great “Twitter Decision Flowchart”. The flowchart is a funny because it’s true.

Barcoding Blog: “Microsoft recently announced that they intend to become a key player in RFID technology. More specifically, they plan to provide RFID-enabled software for mid-size companies to better manage their supply chains. For more information on Microsoft and RFID, download their whitepaper Microsoft & RFID.” – I’m a big fan of RFID technology and think it has a place in healthcare. Unfortunately I’m about the only one that thinks that.

- Healthcare IT News: ” The five recommendations [to improving medication adherence] are: Quality Improvement, Care Coordination, Health IT, Patient/Provider Education and Engagement, Health Services Research. The recommendations were developed following a July conference attended by more than 40 medication adherence experts, including providers, patients, payers and academics.” – I have to laugh when I read something like this. It took 40 “experts” to come up with a list that half the high-schoolers in America could have developed in half the time for a lot less money. This falls in the “no kidding?” category.

- Laika’s MedLibLog’s Twitter Lists of Medical and other Scientific Journals. The same website has this cool video called “Flu Attach! How A Virus Invades Your Body”.

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- I sent out a Tweet yesterday asking all pharmacists, MDs and nurses what mobile devices there were using. I received a whopping four responses and they were all for the iPhone. I guess people who don’t use the iPhone don’t tweet.

- Gizmodo has a few more details about the Microsoft Courier. I really hope this device comes to market. If the details regarding the Courier are accurate it could fill a real need in certain niche markets. I’d buy one.

- Another device I’d like to lay my little hands on is the enTourage eDGe. The eDGe offers a dual screen clamshell design with an e-reader on one side and a netbook on the other. The company is taking pre-orders now for February 2010 deliver.

- Thank goodness that the baseball season is finally over. The Yankees won the World Series for anyone that really cares. For the record, the Yankees payroll was $208,097,414 while the Phillies was 111,209,046. Who says you can’t buy a championship.

- My Arizona Cardinals take on the Chicago Bears this Sunday. It’s too bad they have to play each others because I really like the Bears, but not enough to pick ‘em over my Cardinals. Go Cards!

Have a great weekend everyone.

I love reading stuff like this because you can see the passion that everyone has for their little corner of the technology world. It’s even more interesting when you consider that it’s a completely personal choice. Boxers or briefs, who gives a crap as long as you’re comfortable.

Twitter is a fantastic tool and I use it as much as possible. I’ve connected with several people via Twitter that I would have never met otherwise. These people have provided me great insight into a great many subjects and I look forward to reading what they have to say each and every day. Unfortunately, Twitter only gives you 140 characters to get your point across and you can’t preview links referenced in various Tweets. In addition, not everyone that has something worth saying uses Twitter. I also struggle to keep up with the 90 or so individuals that I follow on Twitter. I can’t imagine trying to keep up with over 10,000.

Google Reader is also a great tool. I subscribe to several technology blogs that provide me with information on things that interest me; tablet PCs, Windows 7, Apple computers, smartphones, photography, pharmacy, drug information, pharmacy technology, informatics, etc. There are things that I get from Google Reader that I simply don’t get from Twitter, and that’s ok. I have more than 140 characters worth of information in Google Reader and can preview the entire article using a Firefox plug-in called Better GReader. In addition Google Reader gives me what I believe are several great options for managing the information I’ve chosen to read. Twitter may offer this as well with favorites and lists, but I haven’t figured out how to best use these functions.

However, the biggest reason for my use of both Twitter and Google Reader is my hospitals policy on the use of cell phones and social media. Twitter is strictly taboo and blocked at my hospital and cell phones are not permitted while working. Google Reader isn’t blocked, yet, so I make use of it. Twitter is something I check while taking a break, eating lunch or walking from one meeting to another. Bottom line, you use the tools that are available to you when they’re available. Is Twitter better than Google Reader? Who cares, it’s a personal preference.

- Paranormal Activity was #1 at the box office last weekend.

- ModernHealthcare.com has released a list of best places to work in healthcare. Alas, my current employer isn’t on the list, but several hospitals are.

- HER Bloggers: “One of the biggest challenges for linking together different health information systems is the inconsistency in referring to a given individual – be that a physician, a patient, or whomever. One system, for example a lab system, may refer to “Patient x” one way (using their own arbitrary internal patient identifier number), while a different system (for example, a hospital) may use a completely different identifier. Between ambulatory EHRs, each one will also likely refer to a given patient with different, internal methods. Cross-linking these systems so that a unified dashboard can be created that displays all the information from all these systems is made much more difficult as a result.” – Exactly! See my post on a similar issue from yesterday here.

- DeepDyve is a search engine for scientific papers where you can “rent” the article for 99 cents per day. Of course they offer frequent flier plans for people who like to read a lot more; $9.99 for 20 articles per month or unlimited for $19.99 a month. It’s a nice service if you don’t have your very own medical librarian at your fingertips.

- The October 2009 issue of Laptop magazine has a review of Twitter applications for your mobile phone. The top Twitter clients were:

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- How about a dual screen netbook? I’m not sure about you, but in my opinion the size of the thing kind of defeats the purpose of a netbook; not to mention that it’s just ugly.

- TEDMED2009 took place in San Diego this week. “TEDMED celebrates conversations that demonstrate the intersection and connections between all things medical and healthcare related: from personal health to public health, devices to design and Hollywood to the hospital.” You can find some third party information on the event at medGadget or by simply searching Twitter for TEDMED.

- The Bay Bridge closed earlier this week following a piece of the cantilever section snapping and falling onto the upper deck. More than 280,000 cars travel across that bridge each day. Wow, I can’t imagine the problems that has caused in the bay area.

- Google rolled out “Google Music Search”. Is there anything these guys can’t do?

- The BlackBerry Storm2 is now available at Verizon Wireless. I haven’t had a chance to play with one yet, but I’m reading good things.

- Check out the new Dell Latitude XT2 XFR rugged convertible tablet PC in the video below. It has a 12.1” LED capacitive multi-touch display and can be had for the low, low price of $3599. The video shows the XT2 XFR taking some serious abuse. Cool

- Here is an interesting interview with Edwin Webb, PharmD on Medscape Today. “Healthcare Reform Has Potential to Improve Pharmacist-Patient Relations: The bill that came out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee and the bill that is currently under consideration by all 3 committees of the House of Representatives both have provisions that would support the concept of pharmacists’ clinical services in the medical home model, a big element of healthcare reform that has received a lot of attention. One of the Senate bills would initiate a grant program to establish community health teams, including access to pharmacist-delivered medication-management services. Another section of that bill would provide funding for grant programs to implement medication-management services as collaborative interprofessional services in a team-based approach to managing chronic diseases for targeted individuals. Those are 2 provisions that are consistent with the efforts we’ve been making for many years to reform the Medicare Part B payment rules that provide for payment for physician and nurse practitioner services. We would like pharmacist services to be recognized under that provision.”

- “Update on Antibiotics for Infection Control in Cystic Fibrosis”. Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a devastating genetic disease that typically causes severe chronic respiratory tract infections that often lead to an early death. From a strictly pharmacologic standpoint, CF is an interesting disease because of the affect it has antibiotic kinetics. When I was a pharmacy student at UCSF we had several CF patients on our medicine service, and I can tell you it pulls at your heart strings.

- Annals of Pharmacotherpy (Vol. 43, No. 11, pp. 1781-1786): “A pharmacist-run osteoporosis service significantly improved short-term compliance with guidelines, including appropriate DEXA scan frequency, pharmacotherapy, calcium and vitamin D supplementation, and nonpharmacologic education.” – Pharmacists strike again.

- TechCrunch: “Ever since Twitter announced it is working on a new Lists feature a month ago, users and developers have been awaiting its broad rollout. Over the past few weeks, Twitter has been expanding the number of people in the Lists beta, but now it appears that a full rollout is under way.”- I have access to lists, but really haven’t figured out how to use them. I guess I’m just not tech-savvy enough.

- medGadget: “The modular TransHospital system allows for the creation of a clinical facility from six beds up to just about any size imaginable. Each unit can be setup within four hours by a six man crew and can then function autonomously for 72 hours. Add a source of power and water and setup a supply line, and you’ve got yourself a real hospital during emergency situations.” – Reminds me of the old TV series, M.A.S.H. I loved that show.

- GigaOM: “Microsoft once again is touting its speech-recognition technology, predicting on its site this week that “talking to a computer may soon be as natural as using a mouse.” But while voice is a natural fit for mobile phones and some other platforms, when it comes to traditional computing — using a laptop, desktop or even a netbook — the use-case scenarios for speech recognition are more limited. It will take quite an effort to convince users to talk to their laptops instead of typing on them.”- I disagree, I think there are some practical uses for speech-recognition. Like any new technology it must be modeled into something you want. My thoughts on subject can be found here.

- Check out this video by Bill Koslosky of  the Wireless Doc in which he demonstrates using Google Voice on an HTC Hero smartphone to perform a medical search. It’s really quite impressive.

- The Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader has been getting quite a bit of press lately. It’s a nice looking device and offers 3G, Wi-Fi, 2GB of storage and access to over 1 milliion electronic book. I’m impressed enough with it that I’m going to pre-order one. As long as the Nook doesn’t befall some catastrophic failure I think it will give the Amazon Kindle a run for its money.

- Top search phrases that brought people to my sight this week: jerry fahrni (hey, imagine that), xcelodose, dell xt2 keyboard, jaansun capsule machine, where is tony north of talyst (this is my favorite), d&d surface table, pharmacokinetics iphone, talyst autopack supplies, talyst users group, pyxis parx system.

- Please stop the agony that is the Major League Baseball season. For those of you that don’t know, we’re still playing the World Series and it will be November before it’s over. It’s football season!

Have a great weekend everyone.

Louis utilizes Google Reader to collect and sort various RSS feeds. Any story, blog, article, etc. that he finds interesting get pushed to Twitter via the share feature in Google Reader (see the graphical representation at Louis’ site).

In the other corner you have Robert “using not RSS, but Twitter, to share the best of the technology Web as it streams on his screen.” Robert appears to be making extensive use of his Twitter Favorites.

I’ve found Twitter to be a valuable tool for collecting information from sources that I would have never thought to pursue. It is truly a micro-RSS feed if ever there was one. With that said I still like to use Google Reader for many of the reason listed by Louis in his post; “1. Sharing of the Original Source, 2. Full Content Beyond 140 Characters, 3. Rich Media, 4. Integrated Comments On Each Item, 5. Not All Blog Content Gets Sent To Twitter.” Twitter gives me a starting point, while Google Reader is typically my final stop.

I use a Firefox add-on called Better GReader that allows me to preview an entire post from within Google Reader, something I don’t believe can be accomplished with Twitter. When I find something worth sharing I use the functionality of Google Reader to push the information through FriendFeed directly to Twitter, so I suppose my method is almost identical to Louis Gray’s.

There are so many ways to collect information from the internet that it makes my head spin just trying to keep up. Robert Scoble is well known for being on the edge of things which means that he’s probably at a place that I’ll get to in about 12 months, but for now I’ll continue using the system I’ve developed because it’s working for me. And that’s really the key to any system; finding the right fit for you.

Keep in mind that no matter what you’re using this week to collect and share information there is a good chance that it will be obsolete in the not too distant future. As long as you’re open to change you should be fine. Even Twitter won’t last forever; nothing ever does.

Keeping up requires a combination of technology and a little will power. Some things I’ve found helpful include:

1. Twitter – Twitter is supposed to be a micro-blogging social network, but it’s turned into a great source of information on pretty much anything you can imagine. The more I use Twitter, the more I come to rely on it for up to the minute information on technology, healthcare, and pharmacy. It reminds me of a mini-RSS feed. In fact, it has almost replaced the traditional RSS feed on my desktop.

2. Google Reader – While Twitter is slowly becoming my primary source of information, I’m just not ready to give up my RSS feeds. Find websites and blogs that you can rely on and collect them in a centralized location. Any RSS reader will do, but my personal choice is Google Reader.

3. Clinical Reader – Clinical Reader is an unusual combination of aggregated websites and journals. The service is in the beta phase, but looks promising.

4. BlackBag – BlackBag is an iPhone application by Ortho-McNeil that offers up medical news from multiple sources in a mobile format. I’ve found it useful as many of the clips are from sources I would not normally read.

5. Evernote – Evernote is a great way to keep track of pretty much everything, from quick notes to entire web pages. In addition to the web interface, Evernote offers versions for mobile phones (iPhone and BlackBerry) and the desktop. I’ve been using Evernote off and on for a while, but to see its true value take a look at the public Evernote folder created by RxInformatics.com. Wow!

6. Pick several journals to follow. Keep it reasonable. If you try to follow too many journals you’ll never be able to keep up. My list includes American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, Hospital Pharmacy, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of the American Medical informatics Association,  Annals of Pharmacotherpy, Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, Pharmacotherpy, Annals of Internal Medicine, and a few “throw-a-ways”. Read the table of contents with each new issue and dig deeper into the articles that interest you. Most medical literature publishers offer some form of RSS feed to keep you informed (see #1 and #2 above).

7. Go mobile – There’s nothing easier than reading on the go, or better yet listening to podcasts. Devices like the iPhone and the BlackBerry series make it a snap. The combination of Twitter and Evernote on a mobile device makes keeping up and keeping track easier than ever before. Take advantage of the mobile environment when you can.

8. Colleagues – This is a big one. Making contact with people you trust and using them for information is key. Remember, there is always someone harder working, better informed and smarter. The trick is finding those people and picking their brains.

- Check out the LED Illuminated Message Board at Chinavasion Electronics. Imagine your typically white board on steroids. Use special pens to write on the dry erase surface without the backlight and you see nothing special, but flip the switch and you get fireworks. I frequently use a white board at work to sketch out ideas. I think this is a must have, and for under twenty bucks, it’s a bargain.

- Healthcare IT Consultant: “Can Pen And Paper Help Make Electronic Medical Records Better? – ScienceDaily (July 20, 2009) — The results of a new study of the pen and paper workarounds employed by healthcare providers who use an electronic medical record system may help make electronic medical records even more useful to health-care providers and the patients they serve….The most frequently cited reasons for using paper workarounds were efficiency and ease of use. Second most frequently was as a memory aid. The third most frequent reason was to recognize or alert others to new or important information.” – It’s all about changing the culture we practice in, and believe me I’m in the same boat as every one else.

- How about the “50 must-follow @Health20 heroes on Twitter“? It’s a pretty impressive list. You’ll certainly keep yourself busy trying to read all those ‘Tweets’.

- The Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists have issued therapeutic guidelines for monitoring of vancomycin treatment for Staphylococcus aureus infection. The summary of consensus recommendations is published in the August 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Disease.  There’s nothing earth-shattering in the guidelines, but at least it’s all in one location now. The guidelines are available for free in PDF format here.

- The President is going to visit the Cleveland Clinic in hopes of finding the magic bullet for health care reform. Good luck.

- Apple continues to make other phone manufacturers unhappy as users drop their phones in favor of the iPhone. On the flip side, people continue to pound AT&T for terrible service and multiple problems. Wake up Apple, it’s time to open the iPhone up to other service providers.

- Engadget: “Looks like Hitachi has made some serious headway on the biometric payment system we first heard about way back in the halcyon days of 2007. According to the Mainichi Daily News, the company is currently testing its Finger Vein Authentication System internally, with the device serving as a method of payment for vending machines and the like. Once it’s proven that employees are able to get their Koala’s March and Hi-Chew without incident, the plan is to up the ante, with high precision ID systems that combine finger vein and finger print authentication systems for military use.” – Hey, how about a little love for pharmacy tech. We could use a high precision ID system like this for our automated dispensing cabinets.

- I found a new medical search engine built on data collected from other medical RSS feeds, it’s called Medworm and I like it.

- Amazon’s Jeff Bezos issued an apology over the removal of illegally sold copies of the book 1984 downloaded onto several Kindles. Bezos exact quote: “This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.” – Ouch!

- There’s a new Wiki describing remote dispensing. Remote dispensing is a growing area in long term care and prisons. Companies like Talyst are developing new technology to promote this relatively untapped arena. I think acute care pharmacy could make use of some of this new technology;it’s just a matter of working out the kinks.

- Some of the funniest videos I’ve ever seen can be found on YouTube by searching for “Hitler gets banned from Xbox live“. The videos use some harsh language, but are laugh-out-loud funny.

- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was #1 at the box office last weekend. I told you it would be #1. The movie brought in just over $200 million during its five day opening. My family and I enjoyed the movie over the weekend. It was great!

- Medscape.com: “Three of 4 observational studies suggest an increased risk for cancer associated with use of insulin glargine (Lantus, sanofi-aventis), although these findings warrant further follow-up studies to confirm an association, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).” – The studies suggest a dose-dependent increase in the risk of cancer, meaning the bigger the dose, the higher the risk. It’s not time to dump your Lantus just yet. A lot more information is needed before anyone can make an informed decision.

- Check out the Archos 9 Windows 7 tablet over at cknet uk. “This is a tablet PC weighing 623g, featuring a 9-inchcapacitive touchscreen (that’s the sexy kind, like the iPhone), an Intel Atom Z515 CPU, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1“. It’s hard not to love these little things. The Archos 9 is one of those “tweener” devices, not quite a full blown tablet, but much larger than a smart phone. With web access, this thing would make the perfect social networking device. So many toys, so little time.

- thejobcure.com: ““Zero error rate” eludes surgeons at mature trauma center - In an 8-year study at a “mature” trauma center in Southern California, fewer than 1% of patients experienced preventable complications, according to a report in the June Archives of Surgery (Arch Surg 2009;144:536-542). “Even at a mature trauma center, with a highly experienced group of surgeon-researchers with a very focused evidence-based practice, errors continue to occur, despite our best efforts to detect preventable errors and institute corrective mechanisms,” Dr. Kenji Inaba from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles told Reuters Health.” – That’s just a little bit scary. The article goes on to say that preventable or potentially preventable complications represented 16% of the annual complications at the trauma center. Well, at least the other 84% of the complications were out of their control.

- Twitter changing the world? I’m not really sure, but this is pretty funny.

- Barcode.com: “The Active Shelf System, available from Barcoding Inc., is an affordable method of keeping track of inventory in retail stores, stockrooms, pharmacies, libraries, and warehouses, allowing automated asset tracking in libraries, document storage facilities, and data tape archives. Basically, anything that can be placed on a shelf can be tracked using the Active Shelf System…..The RFID Enabled Active Shelf System works by placing RFID antennas on each shelf to monitor signals from UHF Gen 2 tags that are placed on each product. The antennas then send information through the hybrid multiplexer that transmits the data to a central RFID reader. This RFID reader is connected to your database through a hard-wired connection or wireless infrastructure, making the inventory levels available through a web interface or XML feed from the system.” – Dawg gone RFID keeps showing up everywhere I look.

I wish everyone a great 4th of July (a.k.a. Independence Day). Keep it safe, have fun, eat lots of BBQ and ice cream, but don’t blow up anything bigger than your head.