This really has nothing to do with pharmacy, but the technology is just too cool to pass up.
I recently attended my youngest daughter’s back-to-school night. One of the instructors at the school used a 600 series SMART Board to give her presentation. Much of what she had to say never registered because I was too busy looking at the SMART Board.
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Zelrix is a transdermal patch containing sumatriptan for the treatment of acute migraine headache developed by NuPathe, a pharmaceutical company specializing in the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders. The patch is based on NuPathe’s proprietary SmartRelief™ platform, which according to the manufacturer’s website is “a non-invasive technology that utilizes low-level electrical energy to transport drugs through the skin in a safe and effective manner. The rate and amount of drug delivered is controlled electronically, so that the patient receives consistent therapy each and every time. Iontophoresis is an established drug delivery technology with multiple applications currently being used by physicians.†The SmartRelief™ iontophoresis utilizes pre-programmed, embedded electronics in the patch to provide consistent therapeutic drug levels. This is very interesting technology with many potential applications. Imagine the uses in professional sports where iontophoresis is frequently utilized to administer NSAIDS and corticosteroids for the treatment of inflammation
The Vitality GlowCaps is a wireless internet enabled cap for prescription bottles that uses light and sound to notify patients when it is time to take their medication. When the GlowCap is removed from the prescription bottle, the information is documented on Vitality’s server. Vitality uses this information to send the patient and physician a monthly compliance report to help monitor therapy. Of course, that’s assuming that the patient doesn’t just open and close the lid when the reminder goes off. When you stop to think of all the time, energy and money spent on patient compliance with medication, you begin to realize that the GlowCap is pretty cool pharmacy technology.
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There were several vendors strutting their stuff at Siemens Innovations this week in Philadelphia. Here are a couple of products I thought were pretty cool.
Imprivata OneSign Platform:â€Imprivata helps organizations secure employee, contractor and temporary hire access to desktops, networks, applications, and transactions – – enforcing who gets access; providing visibility into what was accessed; and ultimately, terminating all of a user’s network and application access, instantly. Imprivata OneSign® is an identity and access management platform that strengthens user authentication to networks; streamlines application access; and simplifies the process of compliance reporting–all delivered through a secure, self-contained appliance that requires zero modifications to existing IT infrastructure, and is centrally managed from a single administrative console. “ – The Imprivata OneSign Platform offers single sign-on to all enterprise applications. This is something I’ve been interested in as pharmacists have to log into no less than five different systems to do their job; at our facility anyway. It makes sense to me to use information from a single location to create single sign-on access for employees. The OneSign Platform is pretty flexible, allowing users to choose from password validation, proximity cards, RFID, biometric scan, and flash drives among other options for user authentication.
Toughbook T8: “Lightweight, yet Durable – Weighing in at 3.3 lbs., the Toughbook® T8 business-rugged laptop combines light weight and durability, with a built-in a magnesium alloy case, sanitizable rubber hand strap, embedded wireless, and added security and remote management with Intel® Centrino® 2 with vProâ„¢ technology. Built with legendary Toughbook reliability and unparalleled portability, the drop- and spill-resistant Toughbook T8 keeps up with today’s busy mobile professionals.†– I had an opportunity to play with this tough little dude and I have to say I was impressed. The T8 is light enough to hold securely in one hand via the strap located on the underside. It’s not a full blown tablet PC, but does offer a nice touchscreen interface, which allows you to move around the screen with only your finger. And it’s tough. The T8 is designed to survive a fall of 2.5-3 feet. The only thing missing, in my opinion, was a swivel screen.
Technology Review: “Later this year, Philips will introduce a handheld electronic device that uses magnetic nanoparticles to screen for five major recreational drugs. The device is intended for roadside use by law enforcement agencies and includes a disposable plastic cartridge and a handheld analyzer. The cartridge has two components: a sample collector for gathering saliva and a measurement chamber containing magnetic nanoparticles. The particles are coated with ligands that bind to one of five different drug groups: cocaine, heroin, cannabis, amphetamine, and methamphetamine.†– When bound to the offending drug, the ligands – dig out the chemistry books everyone – will delivery a color coded test result in about 90 seconds. Philips has been working on the technology since 2001 and hopes to begin shipping the devices later this year. That’s some pretty cool technology.
ROBOT-Rx® from McKesson is a robotic pharmacy system that automates many of the day to day operations that a technician may perform in a hospital pharmacy, such as medication storage, selection, return, restock, and crediting.
From the manufacturer’s site:
Every year, more than a half billion medications are dispensed error-free by ROBOT-Rx systems installed in hospitals
throughout North America. Patient-specific medications are dispensed into cassettes or envelopes, facilitating cart fill, first dose, stat and now deliveries. The ROBOT-Rx also supports cabinet restocking and medication deliveries to multiple hospital sites.
The ROBOT-Rx system provides a real-time, enterprise-wide picture of medications stored, dispensed, credited and administered through the system. The robot continuously tracks all online and offline inventory, checks itself for expired and slow-moving medications and generates restocking reports.Every year, more than a half billion medications are dispensed error-free by ROBOT-Rx systems installed in hospitals throughout North America. Patient-specific medications are dispensed into cassettes or envelopes, facilitating cart fill, first dose, stat and now deliveries. The ROBOT-Rx also supports cabinet restocking and medication deliveries to multiple hospital sites.
The ROBOT-Rx system provides a real-time, enterprise-wide picture of medications stored, dispensed, credited and administered through the system. The robot continuously tracks all online and offline inventory, checks itself for expired and slow-moving medications and generates restocking reports.
I’ve recently been moonlighting at a hospital that uses the McKesson Robot-Rx system. It gets a “10” for coolness, but I haven’t been impressed with its performance. Because the robotic system utilizes barcoded medications designed for storage on peg racks, many medications require additional packaging (over-wrapping) prior to stocking (see images below). The over-wrapping requires a lot of extra technician time and labor, as well as pharmacist time to check. The system is certainly an advance in automation, but I prefer the carousel technology I use at my full-time gig.
“Robotic IV Automation (RIVA) is a medical device developed by Intelligent Hospital Systems Inc. (IH Systems). Hospital pharmacies use RIVA to automatically and accurately prepare IV syringes and bags. By automating the preparation of IV syringes and bags, RIVA addresses the issues of safety for the patient and the pharmacy technician, efficiency and effectiveness in the pharmacy and the challenges of a changing regulatory environment. RIVA allows hospital pharmacies to compound sterile preparations in a United States Pharmacopeia (USP) 797 environment while producing admixtures in either syringes or bags. The automation of repetitive and complex tasks reduces the incidence of errors and contamination.” – The RIVA system is built on .Net 2.0 written in C# running on Windows XP Embedded OS. The system costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.2 million and uses a robotic arm to prepare IV syringes and bags behind a glass case. There are two videos on YouTube worth watching here and here. They are very similar, but offer different views of the robotic arm in action.
RIVA appears to be popular in Children’s hospitals as three of the four hospitals listed on the company’s website include Primary Children’s Medical Center of Salt Lake City, Children’s Hospital of Orange County, and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. I’ll be in Philadelphia in about a week and only live a few hours from Orange County. I wonder if I could arrange a demo. Hmmm.
I spend a lot of time on the internet, probably too much time. Â My recent readings resulted in a raised eyebrow when I spotted two articles in particular; one for a new touch-screen anesthesia system from McKesson and the other for a touch-screen coca-cola fountain drink dispenser.
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This week’s Cool Technology for Pharmacy is a piece of software from Zynx Health called ZynxOrder.
ZynxOrder is a knowledge management system for developing and maintaining evidence-based order sets, alerts, and reminders. According to the Zynx Health website: “ZynxOrder publishes the order set templates and software tools that enable you to measurably improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of care. The content includes more than 850 order set templates. ZynxOrder has four key components: Clinical Content, Implementation, Collaborative Technology, and Deployment.â€
Zynx Health is a company composed of physicians, nurses, and other allied health care professionals that continually review medical literature and use the information to develop guidelines in the form of evidence-based order sets found in ZynxOrder. The online work environment provides users several template options for medical conditions ranging from community acquired pneumonia and congestive heart failure to post-operative pain management and bowel care. Once a template has been chosen, the user selects evidence-based treatment options from a list. Nothing could be easier.
I received a demo of the software several months ago and was quite impressed. Anyone that develops and manages hundreds of order sets will appreciate the functionality and user friendly interface that ZynxOrder offers. All order sets are stored in a centralized database and all changes are tracked via strict version control. ZynxOrder even offers an interface between the order set development software and the Siemens Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE) system, allowing the user to quickly upload new and revised order sets upon final approval.
The only real downside to the software is the cost; however literature is available to support cost savings associated with systems like ZynxOrder. I think it’s worth a look.
Zynx Health also offers a monthly newsletter called Evidence Alert. The newsletter offers the cliff notes version of findings from recent medical literature. It’s free and available to anyone willing to ask.
Advantech MICA-101
The Advantech MICA-101 is The MICA-101 is a medical tablet PC based on the Intel Mobile Clinical Assistant (MCA) reference architecture. The device reminds me a lot of the Motion C5. The MCA tablet provides clinicians access to patient care records at the point of care and allows for real time documentation.
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