fMRI study uncovers mechanism for drug cravings

This article at Medical Xpress caught my interest because I’ve been reading Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 by Michio Kaku, which spends a fair amount of time talking about fMRI. “An fMRI machine uses “echoes” created by radio waves to peer inside … Read more

Saturday morning coffee [January 26 2013]

Amsterdam Coffee MugSo much happens each and every week that it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Here are some of the tabs that are open in my browser this morning along with some random thoughts….

The coffee mug to the right comes straight from Amsterdam. I stopped there back in November 2011 on my way to Germany on a work trip. It’s a dirty city with a weird vibe to it. Everyone smokes and you better watch your butt or you’re likely to get run down by a bicycle, which appears to be a popular form of transportation. I walked through the Red Light District just to say that I’ve seen it. It was disturbing and depressing. It’s sad to see that kind of thing in my opinion.  Overall I didn’t like Amsterdam. You can have it. By the way, that’s a pretty big coffee mug. It hold a lot of coffee.

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Accuracy of preparation of i.v. medication syringes for anesthesiology [article]

Here’s an interesting article from the January issue of AJHP that talks about the accuracy of medication syringes used in surgical procedures. Some of the findings are a bit unnerving: “18% of preparations deviated from the declared dose by ±20%, 8% deviated by ±50%, and 4% deviated by ±100%“. Humans, we’re just not all that … Read more

Firefighers in Australia using ingestible capsule to monitor core body temperature

Engadget: “A new swallowable pill has been trialled with 50 firefighters in Australia, aimed at monitoring body temperatures and other vital readings when working under extreme conditions. Using Equivital’s VitalSense Core Temperature capsules, they transmit readings to the companion EQ02 LifeMonitor, housed on the chest. This then sends data on skin temperature, heart rate and … Read more

BMTS Corp goes down for the count and takes Demolizer II with it

Way back in November 2011 I posted about a cool pharmacy technology called the Demolizer II, a sharps waste eliminator system of sorts. That’s not the interesting part though. That particular post has generated more comments than any other post I’ve ever written. As of this moment there are 32 comments attached to it, mostly bad. Starting last … Read more

Quick review of things worth reading this week

I missed my regular Saturday morning coffee post yesterday for a couple of reasons. I have a cold that has been kicking my butt all week. Not sure why this cold feels particularly weighty, but it does. Is it that I’m run down or that I’m aging? I pray that it’s the former, but fear that it is the latter. My good friends acetaminophen, antihistamine and decongestant have helped me through the week. Top that off with one of the worst travel weeks I can remember in a while and I’m ready for a day on the couch.

Yesterday was a bit of a reprieve as I found myself in Los Angeles visiting my daughter and watching the UCLA men’s basketball team lose to Oregon in an exciting game. I would have preferred that UCLA won, but at least I had some downtime with my family and the weather in Los Angeles was spectacular.

However, life goes on and there were at least a few things I read this week that are worth sharing:

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Cool Pharmacy App – MediSafe Medication Reminder [#android]

I came across this app the other day and thought it was pretty interesting. The app, MediSafe Medication Minder, is part of the MediSafe Project. The website isn’t very informative, but it’s worth checking out. What’s the MediSafe app all about? Well, this pretty much sums it up: “It’s simple. When it’s time for you … Read more

Saturday morning coffee [January 12 2013]

Welcome to my first Saturday morning coffee post of 2013. Here are some of the tabs that are open in my browser this morning along with some random thoughts….

The coffee mug below was a Christmas present from my youngest daughter, Mikaela. Apparently she reads my blog; yeah, I’m as surprised by that as anyone. She thought I needed a customized coffee mug to go along with my Saturday morning coffee post. I’m thrilled to be displaying it here today for the first time. I had to move it down because it deserved an image from both sides.

Christmas SMC Mug

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Pharmacy tabletop unit-dose packager comparison [table]

Tabletop unit-dose packagers don’t get much respect, but have you ever been in a hospital pharmacy servicing more than 100 beds that doesn’t have one? I haven’t. Not to say that every pharmacy out there has one, but they’re certainly prevalent.

The Cadet by Euclid is pretty much synonymous for “tabletop unit-dose packager” in the pharmacy world. It’s akin to how people use the term Xerox to refer to any copy machine, or iPod for any mp3 player. So don’t be surprised if someone refers to your tabletop unit as a “Euclid” regardless of which one you have.

Anyway, I was doing a little research on the subject and thought I’d share my findings with you (table below). The one piece of data I don’t have is price; companies aren’t exactly transparent with that type of thing.

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The impact of prescription time guarantees on patient safety

I came across an interesting article at the ISMP website this morning. The article details the results of a community pharmacy survey looking at what impact policies and procedures related to guaranteed prescription fill times have on medication errors. The results are predictable and scary. “Eighty-three percent of pharmacists working at pharmacies with advertised time … Read more