Patient Safety

For those that need a reason to support CPOE and EMR implementation

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Pharmacists see hand written orders like the one below almost daily. The order has to be interpreted by a pharmacist, usually with a little hand waving and guessing (kind of like being a pharmacy Jedi), and entered on the patient’s medication profile before the nurse can access the medication from the automated dispensing cabinet and … Read more

Are e-patients better informed or just harder to treat?

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I found an interesting article at EHR Bloggers that talks about the possibility of easy access to information via the internet resulting in difficult-to-treat patients and higher healthcare costs. The concern raised in the NPR article describes the effect of information dissemination without context or interpretation – it happens anyway, with direct-to-consumer advertising in all … Read more

Using bar codes and a cell phone camera to avoid food allergies

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ScanAvert is an application that uses the camera on your cell phone to read product bar codes and compare the ingredients to a personalized allergy list on the company website. The product was launched at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco this week and is apparently still in the beta phase. Consumers register for … Read more

BCMA vs. CPOE, Which Comes First? Webinar Results

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Pharmacy OneSource hosted a webinar “debate” today that had two excellent speakers presenting their cases for which technology should implement first; Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) or Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA). The webinar was well worth the time. The case for CPOE was presented by John Poikonen, Pharm.D. John is the Clinical Informatics Director … Read more

Librarians and patient safety

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PSQH: “In order to learn whether librarians and information professionals have expanded their involvement in patient safety, the 2007 survey again asked respondents to choose from a list all of the activities in which they participate. In the 2003 survey, only four persons (of 174 total respondents) indicated they had no role in patient safety … Read more

Cool Technology for Pharmacy

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medminder_mayaMaya from MedMinder looks like and ordinary medication organizer with 28 separate compartments representing a week’s supply of medication (7 columns = 7 days/week x 4 rows = AM/Noon/PM/HS). The device uses wireless technology to update MedMinder’s central database with the patient’s medication activity. Patients and caregivers can access this information via the web or receive emails and text messages with reminders and reports.

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When does medication safety become counterproductive?

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Being a pharmacist I’m exposed to lots of procedural changes implemented in the name of patient safety. Tall man lettering, black box warnings, pop-up warnings for allergies, drug interactions, pregnancy indicators, lactation indicators, “high risk drugs lists”, shiny labels to identify sound-alike-look-alike-drugs (SALAD), separation of stock for similarly named medications, bar coding, double checking, triple checking, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. As the “IT Pharmacist” I get to see all these changes up close and personal because I’m often involved in their implementation in one way or another. Do we actually have any evidence to support using all these things?

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Infusion catheter delivers medication with precision

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VascularDesigns: Vascular Designs’ IsoFlowâ„¢ infusion catheter … is a dual balloon catheter designed for controlled and selective infusion of physician-specified fluids into selected vasculature by means of temporary occlusion of a target region of the vessel with simultaneous perfusion of blood past the isolated region. With this type of directed approach to fluid delivery, you … Read more