Jerry Fahrni

Tag: Pharmacy Technology

  • “What’d I miss?” – Week of May 23, 2010

    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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  • Headed for the unSUMMIT (#unSUM10)

    I’m sitting in the airport waiting to board my flight for Atlanta to attend the unSUMMIT. This will be my first time attending the unSUMMIT and I’m getting pretty excited about it; like I get before every conference I attend.

    The unSUMMIT is billed as a place to get information on barcode point-of-care technology (BPOC), also known as barcode medication administration (BCMA). The promotional material for the unSUMMIT states that “attendees are outfitted with practical tools, insight, and inspiration for leading their institutions to carefully select, implement, and harness the quality-improvement power of BPOC systems.”. I could benefit from that.

    Our facility uses barcoding technology in the pharmacy and recently went live on the floor with BCMA. Some of my thoughts on the implementation can be found here. However, the work doesn’t stop after implementation; in fact the workload has increased since going live.

    Barcoding technology has been around for a couple of decades, but its use in healthcare is still in its infancy. The scope of barcoding goes beyond patient safety, which has been called into question by some, to encompass inventory tracking and management, medication usage and real-time medication administration data for pharmacists. It’s hard to say whether the technology will ever be the magic bullet everyone wants it to be, but it deserves the same attention we give all technologies that have potential to impact patient care, positively or negatively.

    I’m looking forward to hearing the closing keynote by Barbara Olson; Twitterer (@SafetyNurse) , blogger and director of patient safety at HCA. Some other items of interest include the following sessions:

    – “Alert, Alert, Alert! Effective Layering of Clinical Decision Support Tools of a Hospital’s Medication Delivery System”

    – “Alternatives to Barcodes in Medication Administration – RFID and RTLS”

    – “Optimizing Patient Safety Utilizing BPOC Metrics”

    – “Intravenous Interoperability: Combining Intelligent Infusion, BPOC, and eMAR”

    – “Observation-Based Medication-Error Detection”

    – “It’s Not “Sophie’s Choice”: Creating and Sustaining Work Processes That Enhance Medication Safety at the Point of Care.”

    The entire list of  unSUMMIT conference sessions can be found here.

    To keep everyone up to date on what’s going on I will be using the 140 character gorilla of social media, i.e. Twitter, while at the unSUMMIT along with Susan Carr and Barbara Olson. I’ll be there all week so feel free to follow the action using #unSUM10. Should be a real hoot.

  • Cool Technology for Pharmacy – BoxPicker

    Cool Technology for Pharmacy – BoxPicker

    The Swisslog BoxPicker is an automated alternative to carousel technology for drug storage and retrieval. Unlike the open shelf architecture of automated carousel storage the BoxPicker offers access to medications via a single-opening/loading drawer process.

    Once you get past the name, the technology is impressive. The most interesting thing about the Swisslog BoxPicker however, is that it is available in dual-temperature and refrigerated models. The “dual-temperature ™ option for BoxPicker allows automated storage and picking of temperature-sensitive drugs requiring refrigeration and room temperature storage within one automated compact unit.” And the “BoxPicker refrigerated option eliminates the need for pharmacy refrigerators and increases security with automated storage and dispensing of refrigerated medications.”

    In addition, the BoxPicker is clean room compatible with positive pressure. The pass-through capability is a very nice feature for an automated storage unit featuring refrigeration. It prevents staff from moving in and out of the clean room environment to retrieve equipment or medications necessary for compounding.
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  • One pharmacist’s opinion: iPhone vs. DROID

    I’ve been carrying a Motorola DROID since Verizon made it available back in November 2009. I’ve enjoyed many of its features and consider it a great mobile device. Recently I came into possession of an iPhone. I’ve wanted an iPhone for quite some time, but have been quite outspoken about not switching to AT&T because of poor coverage in our area; Central Valley of California.

    Having both devices in my possession has given me the perfect opportunity to test them head-to-head to see which setup I prefer. My original plan was to carry the iPhone exclusively for a month or so to see if I could completely replace my DROID. Unfortunately number forwarding only works with calls. Text messages would continue going to my DROID which would create a problem for me as I receive text messages several fold more than I do direct calls. So I have been carrying both devices for the past few weeks.
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  • Pharmacy practice model spotlight in ASHP PPMI eNewsletter

    ASHP and the ASHP Research and Education Foundation have partnered to take a long hard look at what pharmacy practice looks like now and what it needs to look like in the future. The venture is called the Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative, or PPMI. According to the ASHP PPMI website “there is an urgent need to create a forward thinking hospital and health-system pharmacy practice model.“ I couldn’t agree more.

    The current pharmacy practice model is more than 3 decades old and is sorely in need of an overhaul. Of course the changes will represent not only the services pharmacists provide and how pharmacists participate in patient care and safety, but also how to best utilize technology to accomplish the ultimate goal; a better pharmacy practice model.

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  • Quick Hit – Technology doesn’t replace critical thinking

    I’ve had a couple of eye opening conversations over the last week that have me concerned about the thought process surrounding pharmacy technology, where we’re going with it and what it’s supposed to do for us.

    Rule #1: “That’s what the computer told me to do” simply isn’t justification for doing something that makes no sense. Computers are dumb. They do what we tell them, albeit very well, but they don’t think independently from the human operating them. It’s ok to question the decision made by technology if it doesn’t make sense clinically or logically. Drug errors occur for many reasons. And as humans we make mistakes and healthcare professionals are not exempt. Technology can be used as an additional barrier between a potential mistake and the patient; however pharmacists and nurses should not decrease their vigilance at any point in the medication distribution and administration process secondary to new technology.

    Rule #2: technology implementation should not complicate your process. A complicated process is one that is destined to lead to frustration and create opportunities for mistake. Take advantage of technology to streamline a process. Create a better workflow, not a more cumbersome one.

    I think the two things mentioned above are simple common sense, but somehow they get overlooked all the time. Just a thought.

  • Cool Technology for Pharmacy

    The Pharmaceutical Authentication Sensor System, PASS Rx, by Centice is a medication verification system designed to help pharmacists avoid dispensing errors. The system uses a combination of two sensors to create a unique identification profile for oral solid medications. The first sensor utilizes Ramon Spectroscopy to calculate chemical composition while the second sensor, a “machine vision” sensor, takes images of the medication to determine size, color and shape. The information gathered from both sensors is combined to create a unique identification for the drug that can be compared against the Centice database for verification.
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  • Cool Technology for Pharmacy

    Ask any pharmacist that’s been around for a while and they’ll tell you about the headaches associated with faxed medication orders. I can’t tell you how inefficient a fax machine can be for order retrieval, storage and sorting. In fact, fax machines really can’t do any of that. Well, you no longer have to deal with fax machines in the pharmacy if you chose not to.

    Pharmacy, or physician, order management systems like OmniLinkRx offer a software only solution designed to reduce the influx of faxed orders to the pharmacy. Not only do systems like this reduce confusion, they also reduce paper waste. I suppose that makes OmniLinkRx “green”. Consider OmniLinkRx a digital fax machine that sends the order to your computer monitor instead of a fax machine.

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  • Talyst goes live with new customer portal

    Talyst has been beta-testing a new customer portal for several months now. The idea was introduced to Talyst customers at their user group meeting during the ASHP Summer Meeting in Chicago last June. Beta-testing took place between the summer meeting and December 2009 when Talyst unveiled the portal to a larger user group meeting in Las Vegas at the ASHP Midyear. Attendees were given a demonstration of the portal and offered an opportunity to provide feedback on possible issues or features they’d like to see. Well, it appears that the portal is out of the beta phase and ready for use.


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  • Cool Technology for Pharmacy

    The DoseEdge Pharmacy Workflow Manager, formerly IntelliFlowRx Workload Management Software by Baxa, is a system designed to track and manage intravenous (IV) medication dosages prepared by pharmacy personnel in a clean room environment. The system is touted as “The world’s first and only fully integrated workflow manager for the IV room.”

    The system is designed to flow something like this:

    – IV medication orders entered by the pharmacist, or other healthcare professional, are sent to the DoseEdge system where they appear on the DoseEdge touchscreen.
    – When the technician, or pharmacist in some cases, accesses the order via the touchscreen instructions for preparation of the product are displayed.
    – The product label is generated.
    – The barcode on each injectable ingredient used for the preparation of the IV product is scanned to ensure the correct medications have been selected. Items identified as incorrect result in an audible message of “product not allowed for this dose.”
    – The barcode on the IV product label generated by the pharmacy is scanned to ensure that ingredients are appropriately matched.
    – Each ingredient is drawn into a syringe.
    – An image of the syringe with appropriately drawn medication is taken for review by the pharmacist, or technician, whichever the case may be. This is a nice feature as it allows one to see the actual amount of drug drawn into the syringe prior to shooting it into the fluid bag.
    – Ingredients are injected into the fluid bag and an image of the final product is taken.
    – A final scan of the product barcode is done to complete the fill.

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