Pharmacy

Saturday morning coffee [June 15 2013]: The Purge, Nanopatch, NSA, Adherence, Smartphones, CPOE

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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….

The coffee mug below is from the Netherlands. Just in case you’ve forgotten, I stopped in Amsterdam back in November 2011 on my way to Germany for work. Amsterdam is the largest city in the Netherlands and serves as the regions capital. It’s also a dirty city with a weird vibe to it. Didn’t care for it. I would return to Germany in a heartbeat, but wouldn’t choose to spend any personal time in Amsterdam. I can’t really say much about the rest of the Netherlands.

MUG_Netherlands

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Purdue University develops tablet-based pharmacy tool for catching medication side effects

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Tablets are changing the way healthcare professionals practice medicine. Purdue.edu: “Matthew Murawski, a Purdue University associate professor of pharmacy administration, created a new tool that presents patients with a five-question checklist that catches up to 60 percent of all known medication side effects….”This tool makes the few minutes available for counseling much more rewarding. The … Read more

Thoughts on the ASHP Summer Meeting (#ashpsm)

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I’ve just returned from the ASHP Summer Meeting in Minneapolis, MN. I was there for work, but managed to squeeze in some sessions; just like a real pharmacist.

For those of you that don’t know, the ASHP Summer Meeting is small, really small. It pales in comparison to the ASHP Midyear Meeting that’s held each year in December. Being small doesn’t make it bad, it just makes it small. The sessions are smaller and less grand, and the exhibitor area is quite a bit smaller than Midyear as well.

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Saturday morning coffee [May 25 2013]

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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….

The coffee cup below is several years old. It’s a plastic Starbucks cup that I picked up somewhere in either Fresno or Visalia, California during my time as an IT Pharmacist at Kaweah Delat Medical Center in Visalia. The commute from my front door to Kaweah is just under an hour. There’s a Starbucks around the corner from my house and I used to swing by there on the way to work several mornings each week. Seemed like a shame to throw away all those cups, so I bought this dude. This weekend it’s sitting on the desk of a hotel room in San Mateo, California as I wait for my crew to stir so we can make our way to my daughter’s volleyball tournament.

MUG_StarbucksPlastic

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Saturday morning coffee [May 18 2013]

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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….

The coffee mug below was a gift that I received from the unSUMMIT U for giving a barcoding webinar back in January. For those of you that don’t know, the unSUMMIT is all about barcoding, of which I have a fair amount of experience/expertise.  The unSUMMIT U is an extension of the unSUMMIT that offers webinars about barcoding throughout the year. I’ve attended a couple.

IMG_6298

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Saturday morning coffee [May 11 2013]

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MUG_Talyst3So 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….

The coffee mug to the right is from the company I work for. Strange little story to go along with how I ended up working there, but that’s probably better saved for another time. I ended up with a mug from the company long before I came on board. It was part of a swag bag at one of the past user group meetings that I attended as a customer. I believe it was my first ASHP Summer meeting way back in June of 2009; can’t be sure though.

Iron Man 3 was #1 at the box office last weekend raking in a cool $174 million. No surprise there as Iron Man 3 was expected to be a blockbuster. I wasn’t able to see it over the weekend, but did manage to catch it Monday night. Was it good? Absolutely, it was a very good move. However, I was a bit disappointed. There was a lot going on in the movie, and some of it felt “off”. I’d still see it again. It’s a bummer that this is likely the end of the Iron Man franchise. Oh, just in case you were wondering Pain and Gain was a close second with $7.5 million in weekend gross; a mere 23 fold difference.

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Evolution of [Pharmacy] Practice in an Age of Information [Presentation]

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Yesterday I was at Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange, CA. for the HIMSS Southern California Chapter 5th Annual Clinical Informatics Summit: Adventures in Clinical Informatics. I was there to give a presentation about pharmacy. It’s the first public presentation I’ve given since retiring from the presentation game just over two years ago. Now that it’s … Read more

Saturday morning coffee [April 20 2013]

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MUG_IndianapolisSo 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….

The coffee mug to the right comes straight from Indianapolis. I was there for work as part of a multi-city five hospital rampage through that section of the country. It was pretty nice for the most part, but trying to get home turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. Indianapolis was hit by severe thunderstorms the day I was supposed to leave – high winds, lightning, hail, and so on – which caused all sorts of chaos and delays at the airport. The delays made me miss my connection in Denver, which just happened to be the last flight out to Fresno on the night in question. I got lucky as the last flight to Los Angeles from Denver had been delayed by an hour so I grabbed an available seat and headed for the city of Angels. I landed at LAX about 1:00AM Friday morning, rented a car, got a hotel room, stole a few hours of sleep and finally drove the short four hours home. Total travel time from Indianapolis airport to my front door: approximately 20 hours. Not how I planned it. When I talk to the sales guys they tell me this is “no big deal”. If you were to talk to me I’d tell you it sucks.

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Saturday morning coffee [April 6 2013]

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MUG_AlienJerkySo 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….

Welcome to April 2013 everyone. The year is flying by.

The coffee mug to the right comes straight from Alien Fresh Jerky in Baker, CA. Baker is small town located near the Nevada border. The population is less than a thousand people, but they do have the worlds tallest thermometer, and of course Alien Fresh Jerky. My family and I drive right past Baker, CA every time we head to Las Vegas. I’ve seen the Alien Fresh Jerky sign a hundred times, but for one reason or another had never pulled in for a visit. This time I decided to swing in and take a look. Turns out that it was a good decision. Not only did I pick up a coffee mug, but I purchased some seriously good jerky. I’m a traditional kind of guy so I stuck with the beef in two flavors: Honey Teriyaki and their Road Kill Original. Great tasting jerky. Oh, I’d recommend staying away from their “Invisible Jerky”, it just doesn’t fill you up like the others.

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Saturday morning coffee [March 30 2013]

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MUG_MPSo 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….

The coffee mug to the right comes straight from Moonstone Pottery in Los Osos, California. It’s a pretty cool mug. It was a gift from my brother, Robert. Thanks bro.

The Croods was #1 at the box office last weekend to the tune of nearly $44 Million. I didn’t see that one coming. I knew that the movie was out, but had no interest in seeing it. My family chose instead to see Olympus Has Fallen. It was terribly predictable and a bit corny, but I liked it. It was full of lots of gratuitous violence and gun play, which makes it my kind of movie. Just for the record, Jack the Giant Slayer has officially flopped at the box office.

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