Jerry Fahrni

Tag: Cool Stuff

  • Cool Pharmacy Technology – Codonics SLS Safe Label System

    Labeling syringes has always been difficult for anesthesiologists in the OR. It must be because they never seem to get it right. If you don’t believe me, just look at the image below. These drugs were found during routine inspection of an OR suite. Well that’s all changed now with the Codonics SLS Safe Label System.
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  • Touchscreen technology still rocks

    Earlier today I created a blog post about touchscreen technology for another website. While that piece was informative, it didn’t contain some of the cool stuff I found during my research.
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  • Cool pharmacy technology – StoreRx

    It’s not often that I take note of pharmacy technology designed for the outpatient setting, but I had to make an exception when I came across the StoreRx robotic prescription storage system by ARX.

    What little outpatient pharmacy I remember, keeping track of patient prescriptions once filled was always a headache. I’ve seen several systems designed to make use of hanging bags like the WillCallRx system by TGCRx (PDF), but I never like the bag system; not sure why. However the StoreRx robot uses a different system altogether.

    Unfortunately for you and me, I couldn’t find a video of the StoreRx system in action anywhere on the internet. That’s a real bummer as I’d like to see it doing its thing.

    According to the ARX website:

    StoreRX is the most space efficient way of storing your customer’s prescriptions inside a robot. It enables accurate tracking of completed prescriptions, which is ideal for prescriptions with several bags and also for monitoring those which have not been collected.

    The white and brown medium grade e-flute cardboard boxes come in 2 different sizes, large and small. Both are easily recognised and efficiently stored by the robot. The StoreRX boxes are fully recyclable and bio degradable, but of course, these robust boxes can be re-used again and again.

    Prescriptions can be stored and located using the patient name, as opposed to looking up the required packs, making the prescriptions easier to locate during busier periods.

    Other outpatient pharmacy will-call systems can be found here.

  • Cool Technology for Pharmacy – Pentapack HP500

    There really aren’t too many machines out there designed to unit dose liquids on a scale small enough for the needs of an acute care pharmacy in a hospital. So when I came across the Pentapack HP500 in the ASHP Midyear exhibit hall I took notice. As demonstrated at ASHP Midyear, the machine is capable of unit dosing both oral solids and oral liquid medications. That’s rather unique functionality that deserves some attention.

    Unfortunately the Pentapack website is void of useful information, which is really a shame because the HP500 is a neat little device.
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  • Cool Technology for Pharmacy – Sproxil

    Counterfeit drugs are not only big business, they’re dangerous to consumers as well. Counterfeit medications have no quality assurance program, which means they can contain contaminants, sub-therapeutic levels of the active ingredient, the wrong active ingredient, or even no active ingredient at all. Thus they can cause more harm than good. While these medications can certainly cause problems here in the United States, it’s really the developing countries that are taking a beating.
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  • New device for delivering volatile anesthetics to patients in the ICU

    medGadget:

    “Volatile anesthetics like isofluorane or sevofluorane, usually used in the operating room, have a much quicker wake-up time, but the size and cost of an anesthesia machine make them impractical for use in the ICU.

    Sedana Medical (Uppsala, Sweden) seems to have overcome this limitation with the introduction of the AnaConDa (Anesthetic Conserving Device). The device features a syringe pump that delivers Isofluorane or Sevofluorane to a small carbon-fiber device which goes in-line with a traditional ICU ventilator. In many ways, this can be considered a disposable anesthetic vaporizer.
    This month’s Anesthesia & Analgesia features a study that validated this device in an ICU setting and found that it is quite accurate (end-tidal concentration was within 13% of target concentration). Advantages of this device, in addition to quick wake-ups, include lower cost of the equipment as compared to traditional vaporizers and an overall decreased consumption of anesthetic.”

    When I worked in the pediatric ICU we would use volatile anesthetics like sevoflurane on rare occasion. It was always quite an ordeal as the equipment necessary to deliver the gas wasn’t exactly portable. Anyway, the AnaConDa is a pretty cool piece of hardware.

    You can get more information on The AnaConDa at the product website.

  • RFID still a solid alternative to barcoding

    There’s an interesting article in the most recent issue of Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare (PSQH) about the use of RFID technology in healthcare and what advantages it may offer over current barcoding technology.

    I’ve been interested in the use of RFID technology in healthcare for quite some time. I think there’s real value in the use of RFID secondary to the ability to encode significant amounts of information in the tag. The information contained in an RFID tag could potentially include a patient’s medication regimen, allergies and medical condition. The value become obvious when you consider the possibilities during medication administration in the acute care setting.
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  • Cool Technology for Pharmacy – The Pill Timer

    I came across a Tweet mentioning The Pill Timer from Med Time Technology, Inc quite a while back. I would like to give credit to the person that brought it to my attention, but several thousand Tweets have zoomed past my eyes since then. My plan was to purchase one, as they’re only $4.95, and play with it before posting about it. Unfortunately I never got around to it.

    The Pill Timer is an electronic prescription vial cap designed to provide patients with audio and visual alerts when it’s time to take their medication. Medication adherence is a big problem here in the United States and anything that has the potential to improve compliance is worth a look. I’ve posted on technology like this before, but I believe The Pill Timer is easily the least expensive and simplest alternative I’ve seen. The instructions are relatively easy to follow, and anyone using The Pill Timer should have it programmed and ready for use in no time at all. The instruction sheet can be found here.
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  • Dell Streak to be integrated into healthcare solutions, Yippee!

    Dell announced today that it is going to integrate its Android-based mobile device, the Streak, into its healthcare solutions. The idea of a company the size of Dell working on something like this is truly exciting as it brings credibility to the Android platform in healthcare. In addition, you know the project is going to receive serious consideration and resources as Dell wouldn’t be willing to dump millions of dollars into something like this if they didn’t believe it would succeed. They clearly believe in the future of the Android OS. I would love to be involved in a project like this as it brings together so many fascinating technologies. In fact, I think I’ll dust off my resume and send a copy over to Dell. They’re bound to need a pharmacist on staff for something like this. Right?
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  • Cool Technology for Pharmacy – Baxa Repeater Pump

    The Baxa Repeater Pump is a pretty cool piece of pharmacy technology. The device automates many of the repetitive processes used in filling oral syringes, oral dosage cups, syringes used for injection and reconstituting medications used to mix intravenous medications in the acute care setting. I remember working in a pediatric facility and watching the technicians fill thousands of oral syringes with liquid acetaminophen and ibuprofen for use in automated dispensing cabinets throughout the hospital. With the use of the Syringe Filling Fixture, and the automated pump setting on the Repeater Pump, the technicians could fill a phenomenal number of syringes in a very short period of time. Other times the technicians used the foot pedal on the Repeater Pump in order to control the rate at which the process moved; art in motion. Either way it was a bummer when they were finished as I had to check all those syringes. Regardless, the pump was a valuable piece of equipment when repetitive fluid transfer was required.
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