Jerry Fahrni

Author: Jerry Fahrni

  • UCSF and Walgreens “reimagining pharmacy care”. Yeah, not so much…

    baby_cryingUCSF: “A new initiative by UC San Francisco and Walgreens seeks to turn those numbers around, starting at the neighborhood pharmacy….“Walgreens at UCSF” is a pilot store that offers the most advanced level of community pharmacy care available in the United States today. It starts with the store’s unusual layout: Walk inside and the first thing you see isn’t racks of cosmetics or greeting cards; instead there’s a concierge desk where you can arrange a private consultation with a pharmacist or find out whether your prescription is ready. Pharmacists work with every customer to make sure they understand the medication they’re picking up, while also offering services such as the medication management that brought Helen to UCSF… For UCSF, it will serve as a teaching ground for student pharmacists completing their doctoral degree program, a clinical training site for pharmacy residents, and a research facility that explores new pharmacy patient-care models and programs.”

    I found myself at UCSF Medical Center earlier this week and decided to visit the new Walgreens. I had previously read about the setup on Twitter and a couple of articles I found online.

    Here are my thoughts and experiences regarding the “Wallgreens at UCSF”.
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  • How to get InkSeine to run on a Windows 8 tablet

    I’ve written about InkSeine before. It’s a great little application for those of us that like inking on a tablet, but it’s an older application that was never put into production. InkSeine was never updated to work with Windows 8, either. I’ve tried, and failed, several times to get it up and running on my Windows 8 machines.

    However, I finally got around to trying a workaround that a reader left as a comment on my site back in October; yeah, sometimes I’m a little slow.

    “Tawanda October 15, 2013 at 10:17 am –  Jerry, here’s how I got Inkseine working. I use a PDF markup software called Bluebeam Revu. Without bluebeam installed, Inkseine crashes on launch the way most users are reporting. Install Bluebeam back and Inkseine runs fine. So it looks like Bluebeam installs some Microsoft components that Inkseine requires, I just haven’t tried to figure out which ones. But it works. Install Bluebeam Revu even if you will never run it, and Inkseine runs well. Hopefully other tinkers will key out the components required so that those who do not use Bluebeam Revu do not have to install it. Hope it helps.“

    Works like a charm. Bluebeam Revu can be found here. I was going to purchase the software, but it’s $220. I downloaded the trial instead. Anyway, InkSeine is working perfectly on my ASUS VivoTab Note 8.

    Good luck and enjoy.

  • Application for Wacom’s new WILL technology in healthcare

    PC World: “Wacom has grand designs for a new graphical language…WILL, short for Wacom Ink Layer Language, will store pen strokes in a Stroke File Format and allow them to be streamed using its Stroke Messaging Format. The file formats capture not only coordinates and pressure, but also who made an ink stroke, and when…One of the more far-fetched usage scenarios Wang proposed for WILL involved digitally signing documents using a pen that would certify who had manipulated it thanks to a built-in DNA sampling device.”

    Like it or not the human race still loves to communicate via pen and paper.1 It’s a process that’s been ingrained in us for a very long time. It’s natural, and it’s going to be quite some time before we’re able to move to a completely different medium for communication. We’re well on our way to a digital world, but that won’t replace our need to use pen and paper for a great many things for quite some time to come.
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  • Difficulty collecting information on pharmacy technology

    I’ve been collecting information on pharmacy IV room systems for the better part of the past eight months. I’m talking about system designed to help pharmacists not only manage their IV room workflow, but also help with safety, efficiency, documentation, and so on.

    These systems are becoming more and more popular these days as the powers to be, i.e. the FDA and pharmacy boards are about to get heavy handed with pharmacy IV rooms.
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  • PillPack: a new way of thinking about an old problem

    I read a Wall Street Journal article this morning about an online pharmacy called PillPack that’s doing something a little different. “PillPack mails its customers their medications every two weeks, but rather than putting them into several big bottles, the company pre-sorts them into sealed, single-dose packs, based on when a patient needs to take their medications throughout the day. The pills arrive in a long chain of dose packs, linked together on a recyclable dispenser roll.”

    It’s not a new concept at all. In fact, the idea has been tossed around in certain pharmacy circles for years. Many companies are capable of providing such a service, but most lack the vision to bring the concept to life. Perhaps PillPack can provide enough value to its customers to make it viable. I really hope it works out for the company. At least they’re thinking outside the box, er, inside the box.

    PillPack should really think about partnering with local hospitals and deliver discharge meds to the patient bedside in this handy format. Counsel the patient, make sure they have their meds, automatically enroll them in the mail order service, and so on. Just sayin’.

  • 5 Shady Ways Big Pharma May Be Influencing Your Doctor

    AlterNet: “When it comes to acknowledging the influence of gifts and money on behavior, doctors, like everyone else, suffer from self-delusion. Most say they believe it affects the other guy, not them, and many become offended at the idea that they are “for sale.”

    Trips to resorts and strip clubs will likely continue to diminish under the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, but there are many other ways, often sneaky, that Pharma can entice doctors to prescribe its expensive, patent drugs.”

    Physicians, just like everyone else, are subject to bias. I rarely come across a physician that’s been practicing for more than 10 years that relies on up to date scientific data and/or guidelines to drive their prescribing habits. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had a physician say “because the drug rep told me” in response to my question regarding their use of a specific drug over another. That answer doesn’t instill confidence. 

    Here are the 5 methods of influencing prescribing habits as listed in the article:

    1. Spying on Prescribing – “By selling the names, office addresses and practice types of almost every doctor in the US to marketing firms the AMA netted almost $50 million a year“
    2. Continuing Medical Education Courses – “…these classes are often “taught” for free by Pharma-funded specialists, sparing doctors from having to pay for them but providing the objectivity of a time-share presentation.“
    3. Ghostwriting – “Being published in medical journals is essential to academic doctors but researching, writing and reworking papers is a formidable job. Luckily for doctors, Pharma is willing to help—as long as they write what Pharma wants.”
    4. Speakers Bureaus – “Few things combine the ego stroking and fast cash of being paid to speak—and Pharma has no trouble finding takers at $750, $1000 and more per pop.”
    5. Clinical Trials – “Pharma-funded clinical trials can be paydirt to doctors, yielding as much as $10,000 per patient in some cases.”

  • Why the Dell Venue 8 Pro is doomed to fail

    I was in the Bay Area yesterday meeting with some people doing some cool stuff with Google Glass in healthcare. While I was there I read something that came through my Twitter feed about the original 128 GB Microsoft Surface Pro tablet being on sale at Best Buy for $499. That’s a great price, especially for what you get. I was interest enough that I did a quick search online at the Microsoft Store to see if they were offering the same deal; they usually do. Turns out they were, and I knew that there was a Microsoft Retail Store just 30 minutes from where I was. Following my meetings I hoped in the car and headed for the Microsoft Store to see if they had any 128 GB Surface Pro’s in stock. Turned out they didn’t, but they did have the Dell Venue 8 Pro on sale for $229 for the 32 GB model. That’s a phenomenal price for the Venue 8 Pro.

    Dell Venue 8 Pro
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  • Perhaps the perfect tablet ecosystem: the 8-inch Windows 8 tablet

    A friend saw me working on a spreadsheet with all the information that I could find on the most recent lot of Windows 8 tablets. He asked me what I was doing, so I told him. Then he asked why. Why does anyone do anything? I’m interested in 8-inch Windows 8 tablets and have been thinking about buying one, so I’m giving them the once over. (more…)

  • Saturday morning coffee [January 11 2014]

    “Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture your heart…” – Native American saying

    So 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….

    Welcome to the first SMC post of 2014. Last Saturday was the first Saturday of the year, but I was too busy enjoying my birthday to do anything else. Which brings us to the new coffee mug below. I received it as a birthday gift from my brother Robert and his wife, Kim. Thanks guys!

    Camera Lens Mug
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  • Pharmacy system integration appears to be on everyone’s mind

    I’ve noticed an interesting trend recently. Healthcare systems, and more specifically pharmacies, have started to understand the importance of having integrated systems. I realize that the concept of having various systems talk to one another isn’t new, but you’d be surprised at how poorly disparate systems within the pharmacy communicate. Automated packager from company “A”, medication tracking system from company “B”, inventory management from company “C”, and so on. These systems rarely utilize a single master database of information, instead relying on frequent manual updates to multiple databases. The result of such a system is often inaccurate information if you’re lucky, or outright errors if you’re not.

    integration
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