Jerry Fahrni

Author: Jerry Fahrni

  • 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.

  • Taking a look at the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet

    I know, I know, Android tablets are starting to stack up all over the place. A week doesn’t go by that another Android tablet hits the market. This week it’s the 8-inch Vizio tablet making the rounds.

    However, it wasn’t the Vizio tablet that captured my attention this week. It was the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet. According to the Lenovo website it should be available at the end of this month.

    I already have a couple of Lenovo machines – a T410S laptop and a x201 tablet pc – so it’s not much of a leap for me to be excited about the introduction of a Lenovo Android slate.

    What separates this Android tablet from others is that it is targeted at business users. This basically means it comes preloaded with some productivity software as well as a couple of other nice touches like Gorilla Glass, ThinkPad Tablet Dock, ThinkPad Tablet Pen and foldable ThinkPad Tablet Keyboard Folio case.

    Specifications:

    • NVIDIA® Tegraâ„¢ 2 Dual-Core 1GHz processor
    • Androidâ„¢ 3.1
    • 10.1” WXGA (1280×800) 16:10 IPS panel with Corning® Gorilla® Glass
    • Multitouch display with digitizer input (pen optional)
    • Starting at 1.65 lbs
    • Up to 8 hours battery life (with WiFi enabled)
    • Up to 64GB storage
    • Bluetooth®, WiFi and 3G connectivity
    • Native USB 2.0 and micro-USB ports, full-size SD card slot and mini-HDMI output

    I really like what the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet has to offer. I’ve been patiently waiting for the right Android slate to come along before I purchase another device. I was convinced that the Samsung Galaxy 10.1-inch tablet was it, but I think I’ll wait for the Lenovo to make my final decision. 

     

  • EHRs may not be the panacea many are hoping for

    Selected excerpts from post-gazette.com article:

    More and more studies are questioning the efficacy of electronic health records, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has begun collecting reports involving electronic health and IT errors, some of which have resulted in death…

    “The thing about these systems is that it doesn’t really look like they’re getting any cheaper,” he said. “And the upgrades and the upkeep represents a very significant cost, especially in outpatient clinics.”

    Of those, 163 contained mistakes that could have led to “adverse drug events.” Most errors were mistakes of omission — a doctor left out an important piece of data.

    Notably, this “is consistent with the literature on manual handwritten prescription error rates,” the report said. But the larger point is computerized systems do not automatically outperform paper ones. [referring to: Errors associated with outpatient computerized prescribing systems. JAMIA, 2011; DOI: 10.1136/amiajnl-2011-000205]

    For an industry that relies on data and evidence-based measurements to make decisions on the clinical and pharmaceutical side, there isn’t a lot of evidence supporting the notion that electronic health records produce cheaper care or better outcomes.

    I think the article outlines some of the significant problems that need to be addressed before a truly effective EHR system can be utilized. We’re forcing the healthcare industry to implement a technology that they’re simply not ready for. The IT infrastructure in healthcare is built on marbles and is still years behind the consumer market in all but the most advanced facilities. In addition we continue to struggle to standardize information. We first need to understand what the information will look like before we begin forcing everyone to use it.

    There’s no question in my mind that sharing information across the healthcare continuum is paramount to providing safe, efficient, cost effective healthcare. However, there are some key pieces of the puzzle missing. Without those pieces we’re not going to get the whole picture, and that’s a problem.

  • Lenovo continues to impress, this time with customer service

    I’ve been using a Lenovo T410S for several months now. It’s a great machine, but I’m not here to talk about that. Recently I took the T410S on a trip and busted the case just to the left of the trackpad. Bummer.

    I jumped online and opened a ticket with Lenovo through their customer service portal. A few days later a box with appropriate shipping materials arrived. I packed it up, delivered it to the UPS store and sent it on its way. A few days later I logged into the Lenovo customer service site to check the progress of my repair. Imagine my surprise when I entered my ticket number and nothing appeared. A few minutes later I was on the phone to Lenovo. The gentleman on the phone was polite and courteous, but ultimately he couldn’t help me because my help ticket was no longer in their system. Doh!

    Needless to say I was in a bit of a tiff wondering what the heck happened to my laptop. The next day I called the UPS store only to find out they couldn’t help me either. Double doh! Anyway, as I was ranting to my wife and threatening to hurt people I’d never met there was a knock at the door. When I opened it there was the UPS man headed back to his truck, and on the doorstep was my laptop freshly repaired by Lenovo.

    Lenovo came through like a champ. They turned the repair around in just a few days and returned my machine to me in perfect condition. It just doesn’t get any better than that.

  • Cool Pharmacy Technology–Rowa Vmax

    I became aware of Rowa Vmax a few weeks ago when I read an article about CareFusion purchasing the small German-based company.

    From the Rowa brochure:

    The Vmax Hospital from Rowa provides hospital pharmacists with an extremely flexible and high performance storage and dispensing system. When combined with the wide range of product options (almost) any thing is possible:

    • High level of scalability in terms of capacity and speed
    • Input speed per machine: up to 900 packs per hour
    • Output speed per machine: up to 2,000 packs per hour
    • Safety features: UPS, backup storage drive, stock scan, user identification with various permissions, refrigerator with data logger
    • Recording of expiry dates and batch numbers
    • Conveyor system: for optimised stock picking and commissioning for the wards

    Combined with perfect integration into the hospital’s stock control system the result is clear, streamlined medicines management.

    Stock intake, recording, storage and order picking for the wards: all of these previously manual activities can be done with Rowa in a fraction of the time normally required. Qualified personnel can now do qualified work, on the wards for example. This is a huge advantage, especially in times of increasing pressure on hospital staff budgets.

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  • More fanboy douchebaggery

    Someone, actually several people, posted this on Google+ today “Android is No. 1 in 35 countries, approaches 50% global market share”. The article attached to the headline can be found here.

    Simple, right? Of course. It’s just someone passing on a bunch of shipment numbers from an article.

    Enter the Apple fanboy:

    #1 by what measure? Sales volume (# of units)? That is interesting, but Android still appears to be a very very distant 2nd (or maybe 3rd) in terms of application ecosphere for both users and developers. Compared to iOS, the typical Android app is flaky/buggy and incomplete….Android may be selling a lot of handsets, but they have a very long way to go to be the “#1″…”

    I hate it when someone throws out an opinion like it’s fact. Saying something is better than something else with nothing more than an opinion is absolute worthless. Can you say something is faster? Sure, if you have the numbers to back it up. Bigger? Yep, piece of cake. Tougher? Absolute, if you have the data to prove it. More apps? If you know how to count. But to simply say something is #1 because the alternative is “flaky/buggy” makes you sound like a complete idiot. Unfortunately this is typical of the conversations I get into when iPhone users see that I use an Android smartphone or when I say I prefer Android over iOS. They just can’t understand why I’d use an “inferior device”. First of all I don’t think my Android smartphone is inferior. Furthermore I have reasons to choose Android over other operating systems, but they are my own. My opinion, my choice, my smartphone.

    Is Android #1? I don’t know. I don’t care. And just in case you were wondering, the next time you feel the need to tell me how great your iDevice is, do me a favor and keep it to yourself.

  • Patients still not diggin’ the idea of an EHR

    EHR outlook: “Patients are still worried about how secure their data will be when stored in an EHR systems, a new study suggests. Xerox Corporation found that of 2,720 poll respondents:

    • 80% were concerned with stolen personal information
    • 64% were concerned with lost, damaged or corrupted files
    • 62% were concerned with the misuse of information”

    I’m not surprised by the numbers. In general people are afraid of change and the unknown. With that said, I think all you need to do is walk a patient through the paper processes that we use now to give them some insight into how bad things really are. Stolen and lost personal and medical information is a major problem within the current healthcare system. It’s not uncommon in any given week to hear about patient records that have been lost or stolen. And as far as misuse of information, well lets just say that’s all too common as well.

    The advantages to an EHR outweigh the concerns listed above. Just sayin’.

  • Tablet hunting – the Fujitsu STYLISTIC Q550 not so good

    I’ve been contemplating a new slate tablet PC. The market is full of them, which should make choosing one a piece of cake. Unfortunately it’s turning out to be much more difficult than originally thought.

    The most common problem, for me at least, has been short battery life. Less than four hours just isn’t an option, which eliminates what I think is the best slate tablet on market the Eee Slate EP121. So you can imagine my elation when I saw the specs for the Fujitsu STYLISTIC Q550. The screen size of the Q550 is a little small, but the pen and multi-touch input along with the claims from the manufacturer of extended battery life, up to 8 hours, caught my attention.

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  • Palm scanner for patient identification in NY City hospital

    Reuters: “A New York City hospital has stopped asking many patients to dig out health insurance cards and fill in endless forms, instead identifying them by scanning the unique lattice of veins in their palm.

    The new biometric technology employed by New York University’s Langone Medical Center was expected to speed up patient check-ins and eliminate medical errors.

    The system also has the virtue of not requiring the patient be conscious at the time of check-in, as is sometimes the case in emergency rooms.

    The scanners are made by the technology services company Fujitsu and exploit the principle that, as with fingerprints and iris patterns, no two individuals’ palm-vein configurations are quite the same.

    Using near-infrared waves, an image is taken of an individual’s palm veins, which software then matches with the person’s medical record. The initial set-up for a new patient takes about a minute, the hospital said, while subsequent scans only take about a second.”

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  • Cool Technology for Pharmacy – PharmASSIST OPTIx

    ThomasNet News: “PharmASSIST OPTIx enables remote prescription verification by taking a high-resolution image of each prescription’s vial contents and vial label, and automatically displaying them on a designated pharmacist’s workstation. The pharmacist compares these images to the appropriate drug image from a standardized drug database, along with specific prescription details to complete the verification. The verifying pharmacist can be stationed anywhere – in the front of the pharmacy counseling patients or offsite at another pharmacy, a central processing center, or working from a home office. PharmASSIST OPTIx stores each prescription’s images as part of the patient history record, enabling pharmacies to quickly retrieve them for pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) audits and to confirm the quantity dispensed.

    Pharmacies can use PharmASSIST OPTIx in stand-alone mode or integrated with Innovation’s PharmASSIST Symphony® workflow systems, which enables end-to-end prescription tracking, problem management, and reporting. In addition to processing a pharmacy’s countable medications, PharmASSIST OPTIx handles all non-countable products (e.g., ointments/creams, liquids, syringes, inhalers, etc.) for prescription filling and remote verification. The system can also assist pharmacies with physical inventory control.”

    It reminds me of a non-cleanroom version of DoseEdge.

    Additional automation is needed for it to be a real game changer, but it’s still pretty cool technology. It would be slick if the person filling the prescription never had to touch the product and the end result could be remotely verified.

    Product website here.

    OPTIx brochure (PDF).