“What’d I miss?” – Week of February 28th, 2010

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.

– Shutter Island was #1 at the box office last weekend. My wife and I saw it last Friday. She liked it quite a bit while my thoughts on it were lukewarm. To me a movie is good if I would walk right back into the theater and watch it a second straight time, like I did with Star Wars back in the 70’s. Shutter Island wasn’t like that. So there you go, take it for what it’s worth.

– HIMSS 2010 was held in Atlanta this week. I wasn’t ablet to attend, but still managed to get some great information by following various FriendFeed and Twitter feeds. I’m definitely attending next year.

– There’s a great “Best and Worst of HIMSS Wrapup” at the EMR and HIPAA website. And here’s the flip side at the HISTALK website: “The emphasis was on money and business rather than patients for the most part (my low point: a session that rattled off dozens of government grant programs from ARRA right on down, which reminded me of that seedy guy with the Free Government Grants infomercial).”

– KevinMD.com has a great list of free iPhone apps aimed at physicians. There are a lot of lists like this floating around the ‘net, but it’s always nice to have another. The problem is trying to figure out which applications to use and which ones to dump. You can’t use them all, believe me I’ve tried.

– The Healthcare IT Guy has an interesting article on how the EMR industry can learn from the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) industry. According to the article the CRM industry has made great strides in developing their model based on previous failures. The parallels between the current EMR industry and the CRM industry prior to maturing are very interesting. The Healthcare IT Guy states “with the lessons learned from the CRM industry , and armed with the expert guidance, you can adopt an EMR that can probably meet your financial and healthcare objectives.” Take a minute to read the entire post, it’s worth the time.

– Rumors are surfacing again regarding Microsoft’s Courier tablet. According to electronista.com “The book-like device has had more concrete hardware details and should be powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 250 and should be relatively portable. Despite the second touchscreen, it would be lighter than an iPad and weigh just over one pound and would still be under an inch thick; the footprint would be that of a 5-by-7-inch photo when shut.” Hmm, that’s too bad really. I was hoping for a slightly larger device with two 8-10 inch screens like the enTourage eDGe. Although the enTourage is taking some hits from GottaBeMobile where the device is reported as not being “ready for prime time yet.”

– Speaking of Microsoft, it looks like their pushing their way into the acute care healthcare system with HealthVault Community Connect. Hey, more power to them. Anything that can help improve data structure and storage is alright by me.

– The iPad is scheduled for launch on Saturday April 3rd. Pre-orders will begin March 12th. I’m trying to decide if I really want one of the first generation devices or if I should wait 6-8 months. I’ll let you know on March 12th.

– medGadget: “PEPID, one of the big names in clinical information for mobile devices, is gearing up to release an Android version of its popular software suite.” – PEPID is very popular among a certain subset of physicians. I’m sure they’ll be very excited to have it on their Android devices.

– I found it interesting that Engadget posted an article questioning the survival of the Android platform in the same week that Computerwold wrote about the growing Android market share.

– It looks like e-prescribing might actually catch on after all. Medsacape is reporting that “the number of prescriptions that were routed to pharmacies electronically increased by 181% in 2009 compared with in 2008.” Wow, that’s significant.

– Archetypical: “I first heard about openEHR nearly 10 years ago. I didn’t understand openEHR at all initially, but there was something in the commonsense of getting the foundation data defined and standardized that resonated with me. Over time I have become convinced that openEHR provides an orthogonal approach to eHealth that has a very reasonable chance of success, and more importantly, of making a difference. I no longer believe that the traditional application-driven approach to electronic health information management is effective, economic or sustainable.” – This is a great article that goes on to explain more about the openEHR movement. Check it out.

– Medical News Today: “Yuksel and her research team did a study involving 262 patients at various Alberta pharmacies. Patients in the control group were given an information brochure then asked to come back in 16 weeks for a follow-up meeting. Those in the intervention group went through a more in-depth process. They spoke with a pharmacist about osteoporosis, the risk factors of the disease and screening processes for assessment of osteoporosis. When the pharmacists met with the patients 16 weeks later, they found that those in the intervention group were two times more likely to get a bone density test or start an osteoporosis medication, meaning the pharmacist intervention was beneficial in helping more people receive further assessment and a diagnosis from their doctor.” – Pharmacists continue to make a positive impact on healthcare. I’m just sayin’.

– Isoniazid is a common therapy for the prevention of active tuberculosis in patients with latent disease. Unfortunately treatment can be accompanied by some fairly undesirable side effects, including liver injury. AHSP is reporting that the CDC is now urging increased awareness of liver injury during isoniazid therapy. To that I say, Duh!

– SiliconRepublic.com: “Google believes that in three years or so desktops will give way to mobile as the primary screen from which most people will consume information and entertainment. That’s according to Google Europe boss John Herlihy who said that smart phones enhance Google’s mission to make information universal.” – That’s a bold prediction, but one that I don’t think is too ridiculous. I really don’t think desktops will become obsolete, but I certainly think mobile computing will overtake them. 

– The Five Rights website takes a look at a common situation in every actue care pharmacy in America; been there. 

Have a great weekend everyone, I know I will because I’ll be at Universal Studios Hollywood for a cheer competition.