Jerry Fahrni

Tag: mHealth

  • Saturday morning coffee [March 2 2013]

    MUG_WisconsinWelcome to March everyone. So much happens each and every week that it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Here are some of the tabs that are open in my browser this morning along with some random thoughts….

    I picked up the coffee mug to the right in Fitchburg, WI last summer while on a business trip. I drove there from Chicago after stopping off to visit a hospital in Winfield, IL. Wisconsin was a pretty nice place to visit in the summer. I wasn’t able to do a bunch of touristy stuff, but I did get a chance to see a movie at one of the nicest movie theaters I’ve ever been in. The theater was big, and it had a piano in the lobby. Strange thing about Wisconsin, they have the nicest highway rest stops I’ve ever used. If you’re ever in California I’d avoid the rest stops; good place to skip.
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  • Cool Pharmacy App – MediSafe Medication Reminder [#android]

    MediSafeI came across this app the other day and thought it was pretty interesting. The app, MediSafe Medication Minder, is part of the MediSafe Project. The website isn’t very informative, but it’s worth checking out.

    What’s the MediSafe app all about? Well, this pretty much sums it up: “It’s simple. When it’s time for you to take your medication, the app will remind you. You can also update your app manually. Your caretaker is notified if you don’t check in, so they can remind you only if needed.” The application also supports barcode scanning. Pretty cool stuff.

    I’m not convinced that these apps work for everyone when it comes to improving medication adherence, but I think they have their place and should be an option for those that are comfortable using mobile technology.

    You can grab it for free on Google Play. I think I’ll download it and give it a whirl.

  • BlueTooth-enabled toothbrush gains FDA clearance…

    Only in American, boys and girls.

    mobihealthnews: “The Beam Brush, a Bluetooth-enabled toothbrush from Louisville, Ky.-based startup Beam Technologies, and a companion app have received 510(k) clearance from the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA on June 21 cleared the product for sale as a Class I medical device on and the company announced the clearance Friday.

    Technically a manual toothbrush, the Beam Brush likely will go on sale this fall for a retail price of $50. However, CEO Alex Frommeyer says the company will offer the product at a pre-launch price of $35 through Beam’s website, Facebook page and Twitter feed. Replacement brush heads will cost $4; the companion app, for Apple iOS and Android, will be free.

    A sensor on board the Beam Brush monitors when and for how long users brush their teeth, and then transmits the data over a Bluetooth connection to the smartphone app.”

  • Why don’t we hear more about telepharmacy?

    With the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets these days it seems that pharmacy would finally come out of the dark ages and start using these tools to their benefit. I recently read an article at MEDCITY | News  that talked about the use of tablet technology for “telerounds”.

    Telerounds: The sexy idea is about providing a way for patients in a hospital setting to communicate with their physicians even when they are not at the hospital. An early version of the concept in 2005 took the form of physician robots on account of the tablet screens being attached to “robots” that move from patient to patient. A study conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers in 2005 met with positive feedback from patients and the Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan has been testing the concept with patients using iPads equipped with a Apple’s Face Time program, similar to Skype, in post surgery settings. On industry expert rattled off several reasons why it just isn’t practical right now. First, it would assume that surgeons are always available when the patient needs to speak to them. Current reimbursement models don’t support it. Most hospitals don’t grow iPads on trees for patients to use upon admission. It wouldn’t work with physicians since they could not be reimbursed. Still, it might work better when patients are discharged as a solution for providers trying to reduce readmission rates.

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  • News flash, not all docs happy with iPad in the hospital setting

    Palmdoc Chronicles: “It looks as if most doctors and nurses would rather not touch the iPad at work (or deal with any other kind of tablet computing). They certainly won’t be making it their go-to device. “We had some instances where physicians wanted iPads – thought they wanted them – borrowed them, used them for a few days and returned them,” said Kirk Larson, a vice president and chief information officer at Children’s Hospital Central California, who spoke at the Healthcare Information Transformation conference in Jacksonville, Florida.” – This article caught my attention because I used to work at the facility mentioned in the article (Children’s Hospital Central California). The actual content isn’t really a big deal. Unlike hats, one size doesn’t necessarily fit all when it comes to tablets. Slate tablets really aren’t designed for data input. I ran into this problem nearly two years ago when the hospital I was working for at the time rolled out iPads to the pharmacists. Within a couple of weeks they were asking for their convertibles back (Dell XT2 tablet PCs).

  • Something new from Medscape – Medscape REFERENCE

    Received an email this morning touting the benefits of a “new product” from Medscape called Medscape Reference. Medscape Reference offers several databases including one for drugs and diseases. In addition there’s a drug interaction checker to boot. I took the interaction checker for a test drive by putting in amiodarone, warfarin and TMP/SMX. As predicted several serious interactions were found. So on the surface it works.

    I’ve used Medscape for years. In fact, it was one of the first online reference sources that I signed up for when I became a pharmacist back in 1997. Unlike today, online information was hard to come by back then.

    I like the way Medscape has always tailored their content by specialty, i.e. I have my set to Pharmacist so I get mostly information that applies to my profession.

    I only spent a little time with Medscape Reference this morning, but it has a nice layout with a good amount of information. Enjoy.

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  • Taking a look at the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet

    I know, I know, Android tablets are starting to stack up all over the place. A week doesn’t go by that another Android tablet hits the market. This week it’s the 8-inch Vizio tablet making the rounds.

    However, it wasn’t the Vizio tablet that captured my attention this week. It was the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet. According to the Lenovo website it should be available at the end of this month.

    I already have a couple of Lenovo machines – a T410S laptop and a x201 tablet pc – so it’s not much of a leap for me to be excited about the introduction of a Lenovo Android slate.

    What separates this Android tablet from others is that it is targeted at business users. This basically means it comes preloaded with some productivity software as well as a couple of other nice touches like Gorilla Glass, ThinkPad Tablet Dock, ThinkPad Tablet Pen and foldable ThinkPad Tablet Keyboard Folio case.

    Specifications:

    • NVIDIA® Tegraâ„¢ 2 Dual-Core 1GHz processor
    • Androidâ„¢ 3.1
    • 10.1” WXGA (1280×800) 16:10 IPS panel with Corning® Gorilla® Glass
    • Multitouch display with digitizer input (pen optional)
    • Starting at 1.65 lbs
    • Up to 8 hours battery life (with WiFi enabled)
    • Up to 64GB storage
    • Bluetooth®, WiFi and 3G connectivity
    • Native USB 2.0 and micro-USB ports, full-size SD card slot and mini-HDMI output

    I really like what the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet has to offer. I’ve been patiently waiting for the right Android slate to come along before I purchase another device. I was convinced that the Samsung Galaxy 10.1-inch tablet was it, but I think I’ll wait for the Lenovo to make my final decision. 

     

  • “What’d I miss?” – Week of March 13, 2011

    As usual there were a lot of things that happened over the past week, and not all of it was related to pharmacy automation and technology. Here are some of the things I found interesting.
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  • The evolution of tablets for pharmacy

    Everywhere I look these days someone is showing off a new tablet; in the media anyway. Out in public I typically see mostly iPads with the Galaxy tablet coming in a distant second. I’m not sure that this will change anytime soon, but it’s clear to me that tablets will become mainstream devices for many people over time. The technology is simply too good to ignore. No one knows if the tablet will ever replace desktop machines, but I have an idea that they will for many, especially as the tablet market matures and hardware vendors begin to meet the needs of consumers. Case in point is the growing number of iPad keyboard cases you can find floating around on the internet. People want the iPad experience, but they also want a solid keyboard to work with so vendors obliged consumers by creating things like the ClamCase.

    To the best of my knowledge the next twelve months will bring tablets of all shapes, sizes and OS flavors to the market. I’ve seen information on tablets with screen sizes ranging from 7-inches to just over 10-inches, and operating systems including Android, Windows 7 (8?), WebOS, BlackBerry, and of course iOS. Did I miss any? It’s possible that I did as I’ve seen a few others thrown in the mix over the past several months, but I believe these constitute the bulk of what we’ll see.

    With that said, what impact do I think these devices will have on pharmacy practice? That’s a good question. Because I’m a tablet enthusiast I’d like to think they will revolutionize pharmacy practice as we know it, but in reality it probably won’t make much difference at all. Why? Site back and I’ll tell you.
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  • “What’d I miss?” – The week of December 12, 2010

    It’s been a good week in the world of non-pharmacy. ASHP Midyear 2010 is behind us, but the work generated from that meeting has just begun. And 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.
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