Jerry Fahrni

Author: Jerry Fahrni

  • Something new from Medscape – Medscape REFERENCE

    Received an email this morning touting the benefits of a “new product” from Medscape called Medscape Reference. Medscape Reference offers several databases including one for drugs and diseases. In addition there’s a drug interaction checker to boot. I took the interaction checker for a test drive by putting in amiodarone, warfarin and TMP/SMX. As predicted several serious interactions were found. So on the surface it works.

    I’ve used Medscape for years. In fact, it was one of the first online reference sources that I signed up for when I became a pharmacist back in 1997. Unlike today, online information was hard to come by back then.

    I like the way Medscape has always tailored their content by specialty, i.e. I have my set to Pharmacist so I get mostly information that applies to my profession.

    I only spent a little time with Medscape Reference this morning, but it has a nice layout with a good amount of information. Enjoy.

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  • Ridiculously random thoughts

    – There must be interest in the HP Touchpad because I can’t find one to save my life. I spent the better part of three days chasing down internet leads and visiting all the places in Fresno that used to sell them. HP obviously had the price wrong. Just a few weeks ago I was willing to purchase a 16GB model for $299, but ran into a problem at the Staples I visited. With that said I was never willing to pay $499 for the same model.

    – HP used to make awesome calculators. I used to collect HP calculators, and still have several vintage models. I’ll never forgive HP for discontinuing the HP-11C. It’s still my favorite calculator. Mine was stolen from my high school locker in 1987. I’ve never replaced it. My next favorite is the HP 32S. I used it until the day I stopped being a pharmacist.

    – In my opinion the Asus Eee Slate EP121 remains the best option for a slate tablet PC available today.  The problem is the battery life; less than 3 hours. That’s a deal breaker for me.

    – In my opinion the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the premier Android tablet on the market. Still not compelling enough to make me buy it. Hoping the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet offers more. I’m ready to try another slate.

    – Looking for a new phone. Eliminated iPhone and Windows 7 Phone. BlackBerry has nothing exciting enough to compel me in their direction. Looks like I’m sticking with Android. Droid 3 is at the top of my list. It’s not 4G, but I’ve become quite accustomed to a physical keyboard. Hated the physical keyboard when I bought my Droid. Go figure.

    – You know, Windows Live Writer is pretty cool. I started using it a couple of months ago. Simply type what I want, wait for an internet connection and publish it. Simple.

    – The Oakland Raiders took Terrelle Pryor in the supplemental draft. That’s funny. How could they go wrong given their history of drafting quarterbacks: JaMarcus Russell 2007, Andrew Walter 2005, Ronald Curry 2002. Need I say more?

    – Speaking of Terrelle Pryor. The NFL sure taught him a lesson. Let me see if I have this straight. Break the rules in college. Check. Get to play in the bowl game. Check. Decide not to declare yourself eligible for the NFL draft. Check. Get suspended. Check. Enter supplemental NFL draft. Check. NFL says whoa their son, you broke the rules so we have to punish you severely. Check. Pryor has to wait a couple of extra months before earning millions. Check. I don’t see a difference in the outcome. Do you?

    – Median household income in 2009 in the US was approximately $50K. Median NFL player salary is approximately $770,000. That means the average person in the US has to work about 15 years to earn that. Think about that for minute. Now do the math on these (all rookies by the way): Cowboys signed Tyson Smith to a four-year, $12.5 million deal which is entirely guaranteed. Bengals signed A.J. Green to a four-year, $19.6 million deal, all of which is also guaranteed.Denver signed Von Miller to a four-year, $21-million deal. The players are complaining that these contracts are “low”. Chew on that for a while.

    – My girls started back to school on Monday. Bummer. The last place on earth to learn anything is in school. The schools focus too much on testing, instead of focusing on thinking.

    – Data is no longer king. What you do with the data is. The more data you collect, the more confused you become. Figure out how to use it and you’re no longer confused.

    – Anyone besides me hate the character (Brenda) that Kyra Sedgwick plays in the Closer? She’s a real hypocrite.

    – A friend of mine told me today that one of the physicians in the hospital where he works “is out of control”. Would you allow an employee or contractor you hired to get out of control and keep working? Didn’t think so. So why do hospitals?

    – Three services worth paying for: Evernote Premium, SugarSync and Google Music. I know, I know, Google Music is in beta and it’s free. When they start charging, I’ll pay for it.

    – Decided to sit down and read for pleasure a bit over the weekend. Grabbed Dominant Species by Michael E. Marks for my Kindle DX. Half way through it. So far, so good.

    – The Kindle DX is still my favorite reading device. An LCD screen just can’t compete with eInk for that purpose. Period.

    – Healthcare has forgotten about the patient. We spend a lot of time working on protocols, evidence based medicine, technology, efficiency, rules, regulations, “safety”, etc. Somewhere along the trail we left the patient behind.

    – Healthcare and education are over regulated. The rules and regulations are suffocating everyone in these professions. Who suffers the most? The patients and the students. We’ll all pay for it latter on.

    – “Business” is killing innovation. In my opinion “businesses” rely on the sheep effect instead innovating. And we all know what happens to sheep. I’ll give you a hint, it ain’t pretty. So is innovation dead? Not yet, but the days of truly innovative thought may well be over. I think we’re in for incremental changes from here on out.

    – Form has overtaken function. Too bad because function is where it’s at.

    – The average person is uh, uh, hmm. I’ve met many people in my 41 years and very few look beyond their shadow. “The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if we make ourselves responsible for that future.” –Gifford Pinchot. We’re in trouble.

    – Trying to find an Arizona Cardinals game to attend this year. Here’s the schedule. The Steelers game looks promising. Seahawks game would be nice – New Years Day.

    – Google+ is great, but I find myself going back to Twitter time and time again. Why? Because it’s so easy to post things on Twitter.

    – Never got into Facebook. Friends and Family, but nothing “professional”. Don’t care for the games either.

    – By the way, photo sharing apps for smartphones are the worst idea ever. I’ve seen about all the photos of food, beer bottles, cats, dogs, mountains, oceans, beaches, etc that I can handle. People should be required to take a class before they’re allowed to use them.

    – Saw Conan the Barbarian (2011). Not as good as the original (1982) with Schwarzenegger, but still worth seeing.

    – It’s been a dry movie Summer for the Fahrni crew. I’m going to have to double my efforts if I have any chance of seeing 50 movies in the theater this year. Things could definitely be worse.

    – Most of the presidents in my time have at least given me a sense of leadership, control. I don’t get that with President Obama. From him I get the feeling he’s pulled off one of the biggest practical jokes in the history of the United States. Funny.

    – Just ate my bodyweight in cheesecake. Time for a nap.

  • HP webOS dies a quick, albeit painful death

    hpTP_deathHP decided to discontinue the webOS, which means the TouchPad is no more. I can’t say that I’m totally surprised that it failed, but I am shocked at the speed at which the company pulled the plug. I thought this might happen. I even went as far as to say “the webOS died in 2010” in a post back on December 31, 2010.

    I have no idea why HP killed the webOS, but I’m sure we’ll find out more in the weeks to come. The operating system itself was awesome. I personally think it had the best user experience of all the current tablet platforms. I was looking forward to it’s maturation as a mobile computing ecosystem. With that said I think HP failed to offer the smartphone variety necessary to make the HP TouchPad meaningful.

    I considered buying a TouchPad, but ultimately decided against it. Like many others I have a host of tablets to chose from these days. Why did I baulk at the TouchPad? Basically it boils down to cost, lack of smartphone choice and the feeling that the TouchPad still had some growing pains to go through. These are the same reasons that lead me to hold off on purchasing many of the early Android tablets.

    Good-bye TouchPad. Your death was premature to say the least. Shame on you HP for destroying such a beautiful tablet operating system.

  • Free registration available for Pediatric Safety Summit September 28, 2011

    infant-cuteIn just over a month the first ever Pediatric Medication Safety Summit will be held in Bellevue, Washington. As the name implies, the one day event will focus on pediatric safety in healthcare. The lineup includes some big names like Michelle Mandrack, Director of Consulting Services at ISMP and Mark Neuenschwander, President of The Neuenschwander Company, co-founder of the unSUMMIT and barcoding evangelist. Pharmacy CE is available.

    Early Registration for the event is $150 if done by August 30; $200 after that and $300 at-the-door. However, if you contact Casey Cram, Director of Marketing at Talyst by Friday, August 25 she will waive the registration fee. Her contact information is below. Just tell her Jerry sent you.

    I will be in attendance. Hope to see you there.

    More information can be found at the Pediatric Safety Summit website.

    Contact information for free registration:
    Casey Cram, MA Director of Marketing
    425.289.5726  Direct
    1.877.4.Talyst  Toll Free
    CCram@talyst.com

  • Socket announces latest Bluetooth barcode scanner

    chs7xscannermobihealthnews: “Socket Mobile announced this week the availability of its latest Socket Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner (CHS) Series 7, a barcode scanner with medical applications which has been Apple-certified as a “Made for iPad, iPhone, iPod” accessory.

    “This is the best performing barcode scanner for developers who are creating applications incorporating barcode scanning for the Apple iOS,” stated Samantha Chu, data collection product manager at Socket Mobile, in a press release. “There are numerous applications that stand to benefit from barcode scanning in a range of vertical markets, and we believe the CHS 7Xi provides the Apple developer community with a level of control and data integrity that didn’t exist previously.”

    I’ve mentioned the CHS Series 7 scanners before. They really are neat little devices; small, quick and accurate.

    Another scanner worth mentioning in this category is the Koamtac KDC200. I’ve used the KDC200 and it’s a pretty slick scanner as well.

  • Ever wonder why forklifts have roll cages?

    I’ve driven my share of forklifts. I had several manual labors jobs before deciding to become a pharmacist. In fact, it was those manual labor jobs that helped me decide to go back to school and become a pharmacist in the first place. But that story is for another time.

    I was searching for something completely unrelated to forklifts when I came across the video below. I was both horrified and amused.

  • ASHP’s Handbook on Injectable Drugs is online and interactive

    I received an email this morning informing me that ASHP’s Handbook on Injectable Drugs is making the leap from paper to electronic media. Welcome.

    You can get a peak at the open beta test going on now, just follow this link. I played with it for a while. The UI needs a little work, but it’s nice to see it online.

     

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  • FrankenNook gets a facelift, suffers from identity crisis

    ScreenShotI’ve been using my rooted Nook Color, a.k.a. FrankenNook, for a couple of months now. Turns out that it makes a great Android tablet. There are a couple of things missing from my little lab experiment, the most glaring of which is a camera, but overall it’s given me a nice travel companion with great functionality and solid battery life.  

    The most common uses for the device to date have been:

    1. Games – hands down the activity that I use the tablet for most. Favorite games include Drag Racing, Pinball Ride and Peggle
    2. Reading – Pulse, Google Reader, etc.
    3. Interacting with social media – Google+, Twitter, Facebook
    4. Email, both work and personal
    5. Surfing the net – I don’t do this nearly as much as I thought I would. Most of my surfing is the result of following a link in Twitter or Google+

    One of the things I’ve been playing with is launchers. Throw in the fact that I’ve been recently considering converting to a Windows 7 smartphone and you can imagine my intrigue when I came across Launcher 7 for Android.

    Description from the Android Market:

      A Windows Phone 7 style launcher for Android.

      Unlike other current WP7 launchers (Windows Phone Android, Metro UI), this one allows you to properly modify your start screen. Just long press on a tile and drag tile where you want!

      I installed Launcher 7 and have been using it for about a week. I like it a lot. It does seem a little weird to be running a Windows 7 launcher on a Nook Color rooted to run Android.
      Overall I like the Windows 7 Phone experience. One thing that’s missing is widgets. Having widgets for Android is a real game changer for me. I use widgets for a lot of things; weather, Evernote, news, calendar, agenda, alarm  clock, etc. I’m not sure I want to live without them.
      Final verdict? I think I like having widgets enough to continue using Android for now. My new launcher of choice? Go Launcher EX. 

  • How to make a profession vanish into thin air

    magicThere appears to be a push in the pharmacy world to expand residency programs so “that, by 2020, postgraduate year 1 (PGY1) residency training should be required for entry into practice for all pharmacists who will serve in direct patient care roles.” This according to a recent article in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy. In addition the article states that “ASHP conducted a survey to determine if health systems were requiring specialized residency training—now known as postgraduate year 2 (PGY2) residency training—for clinical specialist positions10; 15% of the respondents indicated that such specialized training was required, and 67% indicated that a lesser-trained pharmacist would be hired to fill a clinical specialist position only if a candidate with specialized training could not be found.”  Basically acute care pharmacies are looking for pharmacists with more education instead of looking for good pharmacists.

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  • Pocket-sized drug detection

    gizmag: “The researchers say that real time date rape drug detection has been impossible until now because of the lack of a sensor sensitive enough to detect the drugs. Adding to the difficulty of proving the presence of such drugs is that after a few hours they become undetectable in the human bloodstream.

    The system they [Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences] developed works on simple optics principles, says Professor Fernando Patolsky. Although date rape drugs are colorless and odorless when mixed into a cocktail, they do subtly change the optical properties of the drink and it is this change that the new sensor detects. When a ray of light comes into contact with a drugged drink, a "signal change" occurs and the sensor sounds an alarm. A commercial version of the sensor could emit a beeping noise or a small flashing light for use in the dark and loud environment of a bar or club.”

    Pretty cool stuff with a practical application. Let’s hope it’s easily portable, simple to use and dirt cheap. Kind of reminds me of a technologically advanced refractometer.