I mentioned previously that USP General Chapter <800> – Hazardous Drugs—Handling in Healthcare Settings has been approved and will be published February 1, 2016. Thankfully, the Compounding Expert Committee approved a delayed official implementation until July 1, 2018. Obviously, the committee felt that enforcing Chapter <800> sooner would create a hardship on systems that aren’t close … Read more
“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.†― Albert Einstein
I’ve recently returned from the ASHP Summer Meeting. I learned some new things, which serves as a reminder to me of the importance of continuous learning and access to information in our profession.
As a pharmacist I’ve been involved in a lot of systems over the years designed to keep me up to date. All have been successful in their own way, but obviously some were better than others.
A few weeks ago I installed the Blausen Human Atlas HD application on my iPad. The application features some pretty incredible 3D images and video. The videos provide an animated narrative on a host of medical conditions and treatments. In addition the Blausen application offers a cool 3D rendering of the human body and a glossary of terms. The images contained in this blog really don’t do it justice, as the iPad’s screen does a very nice job of displaying images like these.
The most recent issue of Hospital Pharmacy (Vol 45, No 1, 2010) has an article by Fox and Felkey that discusses the demand that the ARRA will place on the current and future HIT workforce. According to the article “the workforce to shepherd implementation, training, and support [for the modernization of heath care delivery] simply does not exist today; consequently, we could face a situation where health systems and clinics are financially ready to adopt HIT but do not have the personnel to carry it out.†I believe this is absolutely true and have alluded to it in the past (here and here).
More importantly, the shortage of HIT personnel will be further exacerbated by the need for clinicians to enter the technology field. The article supports this thinking by saying that “some experts have suggested that clinically-trained individuals are more suited to the design, selection, implementation, and management of HIT because they have a fundamental understanding of the processes of health care delivery. Alternatively, individuals trained in IT are more technically inclined, but lack firsthand experience with health care delivery systems†Another truism and a problem that is certainly not unique to the HIT field. Companies like Microsoft, Google, GE, Siemens, etc hire pharmacists and other clinician for their unique experience in the health care industry.
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.
Medicine And Technology: “We have seen so many new drugs and even new classes of drugs emerge over the last ten years. How do most physicians learn about new drugs? Many (certainly not all) community practitioners would say they learn what they need to know from the drug reps. Others indicate continuing medical education or … Read more
Non-Clinical Jobs: “If you’re a physician [or pharmacist], at what point do you need “formal training” in medical informatics if you wish to pursue a career in health IT? It’s hard to answer, because it largely depends on how motivated you are to self-learn. Have you been keeping up with all the recent changes in … Read more