Jerry Fahrni

Blog

  • Why I wanted RxCalc

    I have a couple of passions when it comes to pharmacy. The first is a love of pharmacy technology. Very few pharmacists have an appreciation for the “operations” side of pharmacy which includes automated dispensing cabinets, automated carousels, automated TPN compounders, Pharmacy Information System, etc. These tools are absolutely necessary if we want to get pharmacists out of the physical pharmacy and at the bedside where they belong. My second passion is a little less known discipline known as pharmacokinetics. I have no idea why I like pharmacokinetics; I just do. Some kids like PB&J and some don’t. It’s just the way it is.
    (more…)

  • Keeping up while on the information superhighway

    Web 2.0 has certainly created an information revolution. I used to rely solely on journal articles to keep me up to date. Now I rely on an internet connection. Unfortunately, this creates a situation where information arrives faster than I can digest it, and if you’re not careful you can drown in the excess and end up not learning a thing.
    (more…)

  • New barcode technology coming out of MIT

    Engadget: “Since barcodes are the sign of the devil (must be true, we read it on the interwebs) it’s no surprise thateveryone wants to replace ’em. QR codes have been quite popular, allowing people and companies to tag their stuff with colorful decals filled with bits and bytes, and of course RFID tags are still going strong, but a team of researchers at MIT has come up with something better: Bokode. It’s effectively a tiny little retroreflective holograph that is just 3mm wide but, when a camera focused to infinity sweeps across it, the Bokodes become clear and appear much larger, captured in the video below. In this way they can contain “thousands of bits” of data and, interestingly, show positional information too, meaning the camera knows where in 3D space it is in relation to the tag. This, of course, has hundreds of potential applications ranging from grocery shopping to augmented reality, and should lead to new and exciting ways for scholars to interpret/misinterpret Revelations.” – I first saw this information yesterday in a link to a BBC News article that was floating around Twitter. I can see use for such barcode technology in pharmacy. In the BBC article, Dr. Mohan (one of the MIT researchers) makes a comment that while standing in front of thousands of books “You could take a picture and you’d immediately know where the book you’re looking for is.” Now, replace the word ‘book(s)’ with ‘drug(s)’ and you will understand my interest. More information can be found here.

  • EHR breach in Canada blamed on virus, aye.

    Healthcare IT News: “ALBERTA, CANADA – Officials are saying that a virus is to blame for compromising thousands of patient medical records at Alberta Health Services. The virus impacted AHS’ network and Netcare, Alberta’s electronic health record, from May 15-29 before it was detected and removed, said officials. The virus is said to be a new variant of a Trojan horse program called Coreflood, which is designed to steal data from an infected computer and send it to a server controlled by a hacker. Coreflood captures passwords and data the user of the computer accesses. AHS has identified two groups who are potentially at risk – patients whose health information was accessed in Netcare through an infected computer, and employees who accessed personal banking and email accounts from work using an infected computer.” – I’d like to know a little more detail on how the virus was introduced into the system, the operating system being used, etc. Computer viruses are particularly problematic in healthcare where IT departments invest significant resources, both physical and financial, in stopping these malicious attacks.

  • Healthcare vs. consumer tech, who’s more advanced?

    I spend a lot of time on the internet, probably too much time.  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.
    (more…)

  • “What’d I miss?” – Week of July 20th

    As usual there were a lot of things that happened during the week, and not all of it was pharmacy or technology related. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff I found interesting.
    (more…)

  • Things just got a little better for healthcare professionals with a Palm Pre

    palmpremobihealthnews: “When the Palm Pre App Catalog first launched in early June it had no medical apps to offer, but among the fewapplications the App Catalog launched with was an emulator app by MotionApps that promised to bring applications from old Palm platforms to the new Pre. In other words, if you are a health practitioner who has relied on a Palm Pilot for the past ten years, now you can upgrade to a new Palm Pre and use the same applications with more or less the same user experience.” – This is good news for anyone still holding on to their old Palm OS applications. I, for one, have several as I used to be a Palm Pilot junkie. The article above goes on to list several legacy Palm OS medical applications that will now work on the Palm Pre. Darn you Verizon, when will you get some cool phones?

  • Cool Technology for Pharmacy

    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.”

    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.

  • A couple of articles on medication errors worth reading

    The entire June issue of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (BJCP)  is dedicated to medication errors. It’s worth your time to browse all the articles, but the two below were of particular interest to me.

    Agrawal A. Medication errors: prevention using information technology systems. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 2009 ;67(6):681-686.
    The article covers all the usual suspects when it comes to reducing medication errors via technology. Technologies discussed include CPOE, barcoding, BCMA, medication reconciliation, personal health records, automated dispensing cabinets and decision support systems. No great amount of detail was presented, but the article is well referenced. The entire abstract can be found here.

    Cheung K, Marcel L. Bouvy, Peter A. G. M. De Smet. Medication errors: the importance of safe dispensing. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 2009 ;67(6):676-680.
    The article discusses several strategies for reducing dispensing errors, including barcoding and automated carousels. For each strategy presented, the authors provide some level of support found in the literature. The article is worth adding to your collection. The entire abstract can be found here.

    One final item worth mentioning is a brief editorial written by J K Aronson, the President of the British Pharmacological Society. In it he states “Computerized systems can contribute to prevention as well as detection, but they are expensive and can generate their own forms of error. Simpler and cheaper methods are available and should be widely implemented. For example, error reporting is important in both detection and prevention, and pharmacovigilance has a role to play. However, chief among the preventive methods is education.” – I find this statement both insightful and accurate.

  • Tablet PCs in pharmacy practice – Making the case

    I recently had an interesting conversation with a colleague over the use of tablet PCs in pharmacy practice. We both felt that tablets were a great tool and couldn’t understand the lack of interest in our profession. After the conversation, I felt compelled to do a little research. Rather than present the information in one giant post, I’ve decided to break it down into four parts. Part 1 is presented below.
    (more…)