Prepping for #ASHPMidyear15

Tomorrow morning I’ll catch a flight from LAX to New Orleans for the 50th ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting and Exhibition. The annual ASHP Midyear Meeting is the largest gathering of pharmacists in the country. Over a period of five days, more than 20,000 pharmacists from all over the world will gather to discuss everything from new approaches to therapy, to trending topics like IoT, wearables, and new technologies. It’s a great opportunity to learn a great many things.

Over the years, my focus at the Midyear Meeting has changed. When I was a practicing clinician, I spent all my time in sessions trying to pick up every last little clinical crumb. However, I’ve become less interested in clinical content and more interested in pharmacy operations and technology. As a result, I attend fewer and fewer educational sessions each year, instead opting for more time in the exhibit hall. That trend will continue this year. I will slowly wind my way through the exhibit hall evaluating products, looking for new technologies, and sniffing out new practice trends. I will attend a few sessions on topics covering things like USP <797> and USP <800>, automation and technology, practice changes, etc., and I will be following up with all the companies covered in In The Clean Room to see if there have been any significant changes from a year ago, but for the most part the exhibit hall will be my primary focus.

I will do my best over the next several days to keep you up to date as to what I’ve seen and my thoughts on anything “new”.

Some links of interest:

  • ASHP Midyear
  • Exhibit Hall layout
  • Midday Symposia – There are some good CE opportunities here.
  • Cardinal Health educational programs – I mention this here because there are two programs that I’m interested in attending: 1) Hazardous Drugs: USP, NIOSH, and OSHA Oh, My! on Tuesday, December 8 at 3:00 – 5:00 PM; and 2) Preparing for USP Chapter <800> Now is the time to get ready on Wednesday, December 9, at 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM.

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