Pharmacy

What defines a good pharmacy practice model?

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I received an email today from the ASHP PPMI group asking me to take their pre-summit survey. I did, and you should too if you care about the future of pharmacy practice. In addition to the request for survey participation the email included a link to the PPMI practice spotlight, which just so happened to feature Children’s Hospital Central California (CHCC) where I spent a few years working in their pediatric ICU.

The spotlight article talks about CHCC’s use of decentralized pharmacists as well as judicious use of automation and technology. While working for CHCC I never stopped to considered whether the practice model we were using was advanced or not. It was simply the model we were using at the time. It occurred to me that most people probably don’t see their practice sites as advanced because everything in front of them appears “normal”.

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Don’t dismiss the value of an operationally sound pharmacist

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As pharmacists begin to move out of the physical pharmacy to the patient bedside I think it will become important not to forget the value of a pharmacist that is well versed in how to handle the operational side of pharmacy. Don’t get me wrong, I think pharmacists should be used more for therapeutics than … Read more

Cool Technology for Pharmacy

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My Cool Technology for Pharmacy this week strays a little from my normal hardware and software approach and focuses on the concept of RxNorm. The reason for this deviation is simple; my ignorance of RxNorm was never more evident than during my time at ASHP Midyear this week. I don’t like it when I lack understanding of what people are talking about, and this happened on a couple of occasions during discussions involving RxNorm. This was especially true during a presentation by Dr. Usha Desiraju of First DataBank. Dr. Desiraju’s presentation focused on the use of RxNorm and interoperability.

So I was forced to do a little reading. The entire idea seems simple enough, but like many good ideas implementation and acceptance is a little like trying to push the wrong end of two magnets together. In the simplest terms I can muster, think of RxNorm as a standardized language used to identify each unique medication across multiple systems.

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Roadside drug test anyone?

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Technology Review: “Later this year, Philips will introduce a handheld electronic device that uses magnetic nanoparticles to screen for five major recreational drugs. The device is intended for roadside use by law enforcement agencies and includes a disposable plastic cartridge and a handheld analyzer. The cartridge has two components: a sample collector for gathering saliva … Read more

Why I wanted RxCalc

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I have a couple of passions when it comes to pharmacy. The first is a love of pharmacy technology. Very few pharmacists have an appreciation for the “operations” side of pharmacy which includes automated dispensing cabinets, automated carousels, automated TPN compounders, Pharmacy Information System, etc. These tools are absolutely necessary if we want to get pharmacists out of the physical pharmacy and at the bedside where they belong. My second passion is a little less known discipline known as pharmacokinetics. I have no idea why I like pharmacokinetics; I just do. Some kids like PB&J and some don’t. It’s just the way it is.

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Put your pharmacy in the “clouds”

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We’ve all heard the term “cloud computing”, but I think very few people have taken the time to discover what the term actually means. “Cloud Computing” is certainly a buzz-word and can be found all over the internet. Unfortunately, the definition appears to be whatever marketing needs it to be for the sake of advertising.

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Agents raid Siemens U.S. headquarters

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From the Action News website: “The raid began shortly after employees reported for work Wednesday morning.  Agents with the Defense Criminal Investigations Service rolled in with a rented box truck….DCIS confirms they were looking for records in connection with a specific military contract.” – Huh, we use Siemens Pharmacy Clinical Worksatation as our pharmacy system.