Jerry Fahrni

Category: Cool Technology

  • Cool Pharmacy Technology – Diana Hazardous Drug Compounding System

    I came across the Diana Hazardous Drug Compounding System from icumedical while doing a little internet surfing the other day. As the name implies it’s a small, closed-looped system designed for compounding hazardous medications, i.e. chemotherapy.

    The “Diana System” utilizes a dual channel system, one for small volume and another for larger volumes. It’s a little difficult to understand exactly what the device does without seeing it in action, which is what the video below is for. It’s a pretty cool concept. I like the fact that it’s compact and needleless, but there are a couple of things I’d like to see added to the device. It appears that there is a lot of manual programming with the “Diana System”. It would be nice if it was integrated with the pharmacy information system so that it could utilize barcode scanning to automate the programming, much like what we see on the newer generation of smart pumps that are hitting the market.

    From the website:

    Accurate, safe, and efficient hazardous drug compounding technology right at your fingertips.

    • User-controlled automated compounding for maximum accuracy & safety. Unlike automated technologies that require huge investments and do not fit within existing workflows, the Diana system cost-effectively keeps pharmacists and technicians in control of the compounding process from beginning to end.
    • Closed system assures safety of clinicians and the sterility of the mix.The Diana system fits under the hood of your biological safety cabinet and protects clinicians from exposure to hazardous drugs and accidental needlesticks while protecting the patient preparation from exposure to environmental contaminants.
    • Reduces risk of repetitive stress injuries. Free up pharmacists and technicians from many of the repetitive motions required during preparation and reconstitution and reduce the stresses and injuries that can occur as a result.
    • Increases efficiencies and reduces drug waste. By helping you improve the efficiency of high-volume compounding, the Diana system can deliver workflow efficiencies while helping you reduce drug waste by extracting every drop of drug from every container.

  • Augmented reality has potential for use in pharmacy

    Augmented reality has been a standard of science fiction for decades, but now it’s a reality. We all remember the Starbucks app that made the Red Holiday Cup come to life last year, right? If not here’s a video on YouTube. Of course that’s just the tip of the iceberg as Google and Microsoft have both started playing with the concept; Google with Project Glass and Microsoft by filing a patient with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for “event augmentation with real-time information” last year. Google’s Project Glass was even named one of 2012’s best inventions by TIME.

    Setting aside the marketing hype for such things for a minute consider the practical uses in pharmacy practice for something like Google’s Project Glass. Imagine two similar, but distinctly different scenarios:
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  • Cool Pharmacy Technology – NFC-enabled medication compliance

    Thanks to Timothy Aungst for the tip. His Tweet led me to this Quand Medical page where I found a little bit of information about their medication compliance software. Their solution utilizes NFC technology to aid patients with tracking and taking their medication as well as potentially reducing errors.

    The Tweet from Timothy was timely as I’ve been musing about using NFC technology in the medication use process. With the popularity of smartphones and the slow, but steady adoption of things like Google Wallet, it makes sense to take a deeper dive and give the technology a long hard look.

    I would have liked to have seen a video of the product in action, but I couldn’t find one. Who knows whether or not this is the solution for medication compliance, but it’s certainly a tool worth investigation.
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  • Cool Pharmacy Technology – RxMedic ADS

    The RxMedic ADS robot is kind of cool. I’m not a big fan of robotics because I think they’re basically slow and I don’t believe the technology is mature enough yet; in healthcare that is.

    The thing that makes this interesting to me is the checkout process, which can be found at about 1:30 into the video. The process includes photo verification. Lends itself to remote checking and tech-check-tech, don’t you think?

    As technology like this becomes available it is becoming increasingly clear that the traditional role of a pharmacist is obsolete. Not sure if the new role is a completely “clinical” one, but it certainly isn’t what it is now.

    From the RxMedic website:

    The only retail robotic dispensing system with photo verification. The RxMedic ADS packs high speed processing into a very small footprint. Its 256 cells enable you to fill as much as 80 percent of your daily processing, complete with verification, labeling and capping.

    • Interfaces with any pharmacy management system
    • Save 50% – 80% of time spent preparing orders
    • Can pay for itself in pharmacies with as few as 150 prescriptions per day
    • Fill up to 80% of your daily prescription volume
    • Special HEPA filtration combined with vacuum technology helps reduce dust and cross-contamination
    • Nationwide on-site service

  • Cool Pharmacy Technology – Kirby Lester KL1Plus

    The Kirby Lester KL1Plus is a piece of technology designed to count medications in a retail/outpatient pharmacy setting. The device was introduced at the recent National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) and Department of Defense Joint Forces Pharmacy Services annual conventions in San Diego, CA.

    The KL1Plus is based on Kirby Lester’s KL1 tablet counter combined with new verification software. It’s small enough to fit in your hand and uses barcode technology to provide medication verification during the counting and filling process.

    The is pharmacy technician scans the barcode on the patient label, then scans the corresponding stock bottle or package when counting.

    What I really like about this technology is that it’s simple, it’s small, it fills a niche, it uses barcode scanning for verification, and uses touch screen technology. It’s a smartly designed product. I like it.
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  • Cool Pharmacy Technology – RxAdmix

    In this issue of The Imaginary Journal of Pharmacy Automation and Technology (IJPAT) we take a look at RxAdmix, a system designed to provide barcode scan verification in the IV room. Now why didn’t I think of that? Great concept when you consider the dangers associated with compounding an intravenous medication incorrectly. Doxorubicin? Daunorubicin? Eh, what’s the difference.
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  • Cool Pharmacy Tech – Fillmaster Plus

    I was talking with someone the other day about extemporaneous compounding and they mentioned FLAVORx. I like extemporaneous compounding and have been aware of FLAVORx for quite some time. In fact I featured it as a “Cool Technology for Pharmacy” back in February 2010.

    While I was at the FLAVORx website I came across a link to Fillmaster Plus made by Fillmaster Systems out of El Cajon, CA. The Fillmaster Plus is genius in its design because it’s simple, eloquent, makes use of current technology – barcode scanning, SD card, liquid pump, etc – and fits a niche.

    Fillmaster Systems is only a couple of hours from LA. Next time I’m down that way I should take an excursion to Fillmaster HQ and get a close-up look for myself. I wonder how they would handle a surprise visit.

  • Nano-FTIR: A new era in modern analytical chemistry

    Basque Research: “Researchers from the nanoscience research center NanoGUNE (San Sebastian, Spain), the university of Munich (LMU, Germany) and Neaspec GmbH (Martinsried, Germany) present a new instrumental development that solves a prime question of materials science and nanotechnology: how to chemically identify materials at the nanometer scale (F. Huth et al., Nano Letters, 2012, DOI: 10.1021/nl301159v).

    Nanoscale chemical identification and mapping of materials now becomes possible with nano-FTIR, an optical technique that combines scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. By illuminating the metalized tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM) with a broadband infrared laser, and analyzing the backscattered light with a specially designed Fourier Transform spectrometer, the researchers could demonstrate local infrared spectroscopy with a spatial resolution of less than 20 nm. “Nano-FTIR thus allows for fast and reliable chemical identification of virtually any infrared-active material on the nanometer scale”, says Florian Huth, who performed the experiments.

    An important aspect of enormous practical relevance is that the nano-FTIR spectra match extremely well with conventional FTIR spectra, while the spatial resolution is increased by more than a factor of 300 compared to 

    conventional infrared spectroscopy. “The high sensitivity to chemical composition combined with ultra-high resolution makes nano-FTIR a unique tool for research, development and quality control in polymer chemistry, biomedicine and pharmaceutical industry” concludes Rainer Hillenbrand, leader of the Nanooptics group at nanoGUNE.””

    I wonder if this could ever be used to provide real-time identification of medication in solid as well as aqueous form. How about real-time identification of counterfeit drugs? Sounds like lots of possibilities.

  • Cool Pharmacy Tech – PowderSafe Type A Enclosure

    Every Friday I receive a weekly newsletter from CompoundingToday.com. And every Friday I spend a few minutes skimming over the newsletter looking for interesting things to read. Yesterday was no different.

    I still find extemporaneous compounding interesting and like to keep up with what’s going on when I can. Like most newsletters this one contains a little advertising scattered throughout the document. I typically don’t pay much attention to the advertisements, but this week one of the advertisements caught my attention. It was for the PowderSafe Type A Enclosure by AirClean Systems. It’s basically a small tabletop laminar flow hood used for extemporaneous compounding.

    Compounding pharmacies make a lot of custom medications from powdered ingredients. Depending on the physical properties of the powder being used they can be quite “fluffy” and generate a lot of particulate matter in the air. And the last thing you want to do is spend your days breathing in various powders that may ultimately lead to problems.
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  • Cool Pharmacy Tech – Real time volume detection in syringes

    I received the Tweet below last night from Denis Lebel. The link took me to a YouTube video that demonstrates the use of a camera and software to determine the volume inside a syringe. It’s really cool.

    I had an idea like this about 6-8 months ago. I talked it over with a colleague and they said it couldn’t be done. Well it seems the smart folks at Scorpion Vision Software did what couldn’t be done. Surprise! Denis said they’ve been working on it for about a year. Congratulations are in order as I think this is brilliant.

    Translated text from the video description: “This video shows a proof of concept that allows the detection volume of syringes in real time thanks to the vision software. This real-time detection, combined with the reading of bar code products can be an important addition to the quality control of the preparation of intravenous medications in sterile chamber in pharmacies of health facilities.

    In this video we demonstrate how the Scorpion vision software software identifies the”bar code” that identifies the type of syringe used, the position of the piston and thesyringe body in 3D space and then estimating the volume contained in the syringe.”