Jerry Fahrni

Year: 2012

  • Quick Hit: The decision to be indecisive

    Have you ever had something on your plate that just won’t go away because someone is “thinking about it” or trying to “justify it”? Sure you have. I know I have. I always wonder what the person is thinking about when it takes months to make a decision. Doesn’t the information you have to make the decision become outdated when you wait that long? I for one, can’t think about anything that long because it gives me a headache. And sometimes you simply can’t justify something; it’s a leap of faith.

    One thing is for certain, if you’re waiting for the right moment, the moment will never come. Decisions don’t need to be right or wrong, they simply need to be made. Heaven forbid you make a bad call on something. I seriously doubt anyone has gone through life mistake free. If you never make a mistake you’re not trying hard enough in my opinion. Heck, I’d go as far as to say that some of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned have been from my failures. Sure, the failures sting a little, but that’s what helps one learn from the process.

    I believe fear is the cornerstone of indecisiveness; fear of making the wrong decision. Choosing to not make a decision is, in itself, a decision. Unfortunately it’s a decision that people repeat time and time again without learning from the mistake of not choosing. The only way to learn to make good decisions is through the experience gained from making bad decisions. Kind of a circular argument, I know. Go figure.

    According to Albert  Camus “life is the sum of all your choices.” So what does that say about your life if you don’t make any decisions? Not much.

    As Staff Sergeant Nantz so eloquently put it in the movie Battle Los Angeles, “You can go right. You can go left. I don’t give a damn. Just make a decision”.

  • Telepharmacy, it’s not just a made-up word

    radionewsThe definition of telemedicine is “the use of telecommunication technologies to deliver medical information and services to locations at a distance from the care giver or educator.” So what’s the definition of telepharmacy? I’m not quite sure, but replacing “medical information and services” with “pharmacy information and services” seems reasonable.

    I saw a lot of interest in telepharmacy at the ASHP Midyear meeting in New Orleans last month. Based on all the activity one might think it’s a new concept. Au contraire, telemedicine has been around since at least the 1960’s, when NASA built this technology into spacecraft and astronauts’ suits to monitor physiological parameters. Crud, one could argue that the concept has been around much longer than that (see image to the right from April 1924).

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  • Cool Pharmacy Technology – ZiuZ Inspector

    The ZiuZ Inspector – or is it the Foresee Inspector – is an interesting system designed to inspect the contents of unit dose packages produced by high-speed unit dose packagers. I don’t think there’s much need for this in most acute care pharmacy operations here in the U.S. because we don’t unit dose enough tablets and/or capsules to make it worth while, but I do think it may have potential in some long-term care pharmacies using a central dispensing model. Who knows, that’s not really my area of expertise.
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  • Don’t confuse Durezol and Durasal (S.A.L.A.D.)

    PharmQD: “FDA is alerting pharmacists and other health care professionals of potential injury due to confusion between the FDA-approved eye medicine Durezol (difluprednate ophthalmic emulsion) 0.05% and the unapproved prescription topical wart remover Durasal (salicylic acid) 26%.

    There has been one report of serious injury when a pharmacist mistakenly gave an eye surgery patient Durasal, the salicylic acid–containing wart remover, instead of the prescribed Durezol eye drops. Durezol is approved for treatment of inflammation and pain association with ocular surgery.”

    Seems like I’ve read about this mistake before. Being their typical efficient self, the FDA alert was issued on December 28, 2011, more than three months after ISMP alerted everyone.

    Some things you can do to prevent stuff like this from happening include (taken from a Pharmacy Times article):

    • Include both brand and generic names, along with indication, when prescribing look- or sound-alike drug names.
    • Spell out drug names that have been confused when accepting telephone orders. Require staff to write down the prescription and then perform a read back (and spell back for drugs that are known to cause confusion) of the complete prescription for verification.
    • Assign time to provide counseling to patients and/or caregivers, especially for new prescriptions.

     

  • The e-patient movement, panacea or barrier to care?

    I haven’t really paid much attention to the e-patient movement, but recently it’s become a subject of interest.

    I Googled “epatient”, and here’s what I found: “e-Patients are health consumers who use the Internet to gather information about a medical condition of particular interest to them, and who use electronic communication tools in coping with medical conditions The term encompasses both those who seek online guidance for their own ailments and the friends and family members who go online on their behalf. e-Patients report two effects of their online health research: “better health information and services, and different (but not always better) relationships with their doctors.”” This definition comes from Wikipedia. I’m not a big fan of Wikipedia, but in this case it seems appropriate.
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