Jerry Fahrni

Author: Jerry Fahrni

  • Trolling cyberspace for relevant information

    Ours is an age of information. It comes at us from all directions; unrelenting and ever present. Finding information is no longer a problem, figuring out what to do with it and how to handle the never ending stream of information is.

    Cyberspace, i.e. the internet is full of information. It’s available via weblogs, online journals, social media, through professional organizations, via webinars and so on. The problem is that the information has no meaningful structure, making it difficult to sift through. What’s worse is trying to figure out what information is reliable and what information isn’t.

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  • Drug shortages, the self-fulfilling prophecy

    It seems that every pharmacy I visit lately has an excess of certain medications bursting from their shelves. It’s a strange thing as discussions involving inventory tend to focus on reduction, not accumulation.

    I’ve seen boxes of enoxaparin, midazolam and propofol stacked to the ceiling in pharmacies throughout various parts of the country. When I inquire about the reasons behind the large quantities I typically get one of the following responses: “it’s on backorder so we ordered as much as we could get” or “it was hard to get so we ordered extra”.

    Drug shortages have become quite a problem over the past year. ASHP has dedicated significant time and resources to the issue. They’ve even gone as far as establishing a website where you can go for the most up to date information. In addition they’re calling for action to help support the Preserving Access to Life Saving Medications Act.

    With that said I think part of the problem is pharmacies over ordering medications on backorder, thus contributing to the shortage. Think about it. Reminds me of the Eric Cartman novel marketing strategy, dubbed the "you-can’t-come" technique. Tell people they can’t have something and the go crazy trying to get it.

    There are reasonable alternatives to many of the medications on the drug shortage list. It’s a real shame to see pharmacies not utilizing a better strategy.

  • You gotta’ love search engine terms

    I use WordPress to manage my blog. One of the plugins for WordPress tracks search engine terms that bring people to my site. Some of the search terms make no sense to me, but I have to say that I found today’s result funny.

     

    pharmacists_hate_their_job_search

  • Motion Ships the First Ultra-light and Rugged CL900 Tablet PC

    Motion News Release regarding their new CL900 tablet PC:

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  • Windows 7 tablet PC desktop done right by an end user

    From Windows 7 Tablet Blog. Look at the screenshot and then watch the video. When you’re through being amazed jump to the website and read how this transformation took place.
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  • Technology and pharmacist impact on medication adherence

    mobihealthnews: “According to a recent study by Express Scripts, Americans might be wasting as much as $258 billion annually by not taking their prescribed medications. Missed doses can lead to emergency room visits and doctors’ visits, which could be prevented if medication adherence was improved. The Express Scripts study found that more than half of people who believe they take their medications properly are not, according to a report in USA Today.

    A similar study conducted by NEHI found that poor medication adherence results in illnesses and ensuing treatments that cost some $290 billion in unnecessary spending each year, $100 billion of that in avoidable hospitalizations alone.

    Two members of Congress recently introduced bills to allow Medicare reimbursement for more patients to sit down with therapists one-on-one and equip patients with pill boxes or text message services that help patients become more adherent, the USA Today report said.

    The Toronto University College of Pharmacy conducted a study that found medication therapy saved about $93.78 per patient annually in a study of 23,798 people, USA Today reports.”
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  • Lexicomp announces expanded neonatal dosing information

    Lexicomp is still the best drug information resource in the business in my opinion, and today I received an email announcing expanded neonatal dosing information in their pediatric references. The new information should be available for online subscriptions and all handheld subscriptions almost immediately; officially June 2. Changes to the print version should appear some time in mid August.

    From Lexicomp News & Notes Update:

    Introducing NEW Neonatal Dosing Information

    Lexicomp is improving and expanding its neonatal dosing information in all handheld subscriptions to help deliver even better patient care for this sensitive population. Detailed dosing information for this high-risk population has been enhanced and highlighted to reduce confusion. This new field will be available in both print and handheld software, and will make it easier to find relevant neonatal dosing information on hundreds of drugs. In fact, Lexicomp now has specific neonatal dosing information on over 250 drugs — over 50% more than other sources!

    ONLINE AND HANDHELD

    On June 2, the Pediatric Lexi-Drugs database will be renamed Pediatric & Neonatal Lexi-Drugs. The new field with enhanced neonatal dosing information will start showing up on the same day. If you already subscribe to this database, you will only need to perform an update to get the new field.

    IN PRINT

    The next edition of the Pediatric Dosage Handbook is the 18th edition, which is scheduled to publish in mid August 2011. This edition will have a new name — the Pediatric & Neonatal Dosage Handbook — and will include the enhanced and highlighted neonatal dosing information.

  • Now here’s a job worth investigating

    I’ve been infatuated with job listing lately as I feel that many healthcare systems looking for pharmacists just don’t get it. But I have to give credit where credit is due. I came across the following listing in my RSS feed this morning. It comes from The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

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  • AJHP Podcast on PPMI with Dr. Henri Manasse of ASHP

    I just finished listening to an AJHP Podcast interview of Dr. Henri Manasse, CEO and Executive Vice President of ASHP and keynote speaker at the PPMI Summit last year.

    Overall it was an interesting interview. Dr. Manasse had some good things to say. One thing I found particularly interesting was a short section near the beginning of the interview where he spoke about using pharmacy residents to focus on issues brought up during the PPMI Summit.

    Every pharmacy resident is required to do a project during their residency. The projects range from investigational medication use, to antibiotic stewardship programs, to investigating new practice models. Most hold significant value not only to the resident, but the facility as well. Project time in many pharmacies is difficult to come by for pharmacists in a staffing role, so it makes sense to make use of pharmacy residents when appropriate.

    With over 1500 pharmacy residents each year it shouldn’t take long to knock out all those PPMI Summit recommendations.

  • No walls, mobility and modularity

    AMD blogs: “I can envision a future where we carry around a personal module and when we get close to any display, we can easily interact with our content and communicate with our loved ones. We are a ways off from that future. It will be driven by powerful CPUs, GPUs, APUs, wireless, HCI and software. There will be interim steps, of course, and I like to stay close to the bleeding edge as it is one of many indicators of where we are on the evolution. In this modular and extensible context, I’ve looked at the Motorola LapDock, the Motorola HD Multimedia Dock, and the Motorola Xoom as a notebook replacement.”

    The Author of the article, Pat Moorhead connected a BlackBerry PlayBook to a Samsung 21.5” LED Display, Apple Wireless Keyboard and Acer Ferrari Bluetooth mouse. You can see the setup here.

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