Jerry Fahrni

Tag: Random thought

  • BMTS Corp goes down for the count and takes Demolizer II with it

    Way back in November 2011 I posted about a cool pharmacy technology called the Demolizer II, a sharps waste eliminator system of sorts. That’s not the interesting part though. That particular post has generated more comments than any other post I’ve ever written. As of this moment there are 32 comments attached to it, mostly bad.

    Starting last month comments mentioning BMTS going out of business started to appear.

    Mike – December 26, 2012 at 5:27 pm
    BMTS, a public company appears to be out of business. They have not filed a report with the SEC since the third quarter of 2011.

    John – January 22, 2013 at 11:35 am
    The IRS has placed locks on the office doors at BMTS due to back taxes. Not sure what the future holds for these guys but its not good at this point.

    Sharon Wagner – January 22, 2013 at 11:38 am
    I just spoke with the owner of the company, John Bricken, who apologized profusely, told me that the company is in financial dire straits and told me to do whatever I have to do because he has no way of helping me. I point blank asked him if I purchased a very expense piece of equipment that is now useless and his respose was, “yes, I’m afraid so”. I asked if there was any possibility that we would be able to eventually get the containers and use this device again and he told me if he was a betting man, he’d say no. The long and the short of my conversation with Mr. Bricken was that we might as well throw our Demolizers away because the company is going belly up! At least someone was finally honest with me!

    Kind of sad really as the Demolizer II was a pretty cool product.

  • Two years as a product manager, a retrospective

    Second DownA colleague wished me a happy two year anniversary the other day. Apparently LinkedIn tracks that kind of stuff. I knew it had been about two years since leaving pharmacy practice and becoming a product manager, but I hadn’t really given it a whole lot of thought until now.

    So, two years. What’s that mean? Not much really, especially if you buy into the theory outlined by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. According to Gladwell it takes about 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to truly master a skill, any skill. Given that I’ve been a product manager for two years, and assuming that an average year is about 2,000 hours of work, which we know is laughable, then I’ve barely scratched the surface.
    (more…)

  • Augmented reality has potential for use in pharmacy

    Augmented reality has been a standard of science fiction for decades, but now it’s a reality. We all remember the Starbucks app that made the Red Holiday Cup come to life last year, right? If not here’s a video on YouTube. Of course that’s just the tip of the iceberg as Google and Microsoft have both started playing with the concept; Google with Project Glass and Microsoft by filing a patient with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for “event augmentation with real-time information” last year. Google’s Project Glass was even named one of 2012’s best inventions by TIME.

    Setting aside the marketing hype for such things for a minute consider the practical uses in pharmacy practice for something like Google’s Project Glass. Imagine two similar, but distinctly different scenarios:
    (more…)

  • Random thoughts on pharmacy, among other things

    I spent a few hours on a plane today. I do all kinds of things when I’m stuck on a plane. I used to work, but that got old after a while. Now I play games, read for pleasure, listen to music, or simply think. Today was a thinking day. I tried playing a game, but my mind was fixated on other things. It’s quite irritating when that happens as I’d rather play games. Anyway, today my mind was focused on pharmacy, which is nothing unusual. I think about pharmacy a lot. Here are some of the things that are floating around my mind:
    (more…)

  • My initial impression of Microsoft’s Surface RT Tablet

    First and foremost I haven’t purchased a Surface RT tablet. While traveling this week for work I found an opportunity to stop by a Microsoft Retail store in the area and finally get my hands on one for about half an hour. There is no question about  it, Microsoft has done themselves proud with the Surface hardware. The tablet is beautiful from the kickstand to the angular features and even the touch cover, which is surprisingly nice to type with and gives the tablet a finished look when closed. The UI works great on the tablet and everything operates smoothly. I put it through its paces by opening as many programs as I could and just bouncing around from a Word document and SkyDrive to taking photos and video. I even spent time browsing the web from within the new IE. Everything worked as advertised.


    (more…)

  • Saturday morning coffee [October 6 2012]

    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 to the right is from the historic Cafe Du Monde New Orleans. I picked it up while in New Orleans for ASHP Midyear 2011. Worst ASHP Midyear I’ve ever attended, but that’s another story. You can read more about my trip here. Café Du Monde is a landmark in New Orleans and you can’t call yourself a tourist if you don’t stop in for some of their famous Beignets (French donuts).  The Beignets was good, but the coffee was better.I liked the coffee so much that I brought some home along with the mug you see to the right. While the coffee is still good when I make it here at home, it was much better sitting at Cafe Du Monde eating Beignets with my wife.

    Hotel Transylvania was #1 at the box office last weekend. I haven’t had the opportunity to see it, but it’s on the Fahrni family agenda for this weekend. My wife and I saw Looper last week. Still not sure how I feel about Looper. Typically I know whether I liked a movie or not by the time I leave the theater. Not this time. It was a good movie, but different. I’d recommend you see it given the chance, but if you miss it I won’t hold it against you.
    (more…)

  • Hospital called “hotbed for healthcare innovation” with “state-of-the-art NICU” also definition of irony

    According to good ol’ Merriam-Webster irony is defined as “the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning”. That’s the first thing that popped into my mind when I read the article referred to in the Tweet below from @ClinicalInnTech.

    The article talks about a state-of-the-art NICU at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island. The article has some great information in it and paints a great picture of some of the cool things that are being done there, but the presentation embedded in the article made me laugh.

    Slide #10 shows “resident pediatrician Carly Guss, MD, [pushing] a workstation on wheels [W.O.W.] through the NICU hallway toward a patient’s room”(image below). How much paper do you think can actually fit on that W.O.W.? It’s a good thing they’re using state-of-the-art technology. I’d hate to see what it would look like if they were using antiquated technology. The full set of slides can be found on SlideShare.

  • Re-evaluating my travel gadgetry

    I enjoy my gadgets. I enjoy them a lot. I take them everywhere I go. I’m not obsessed with them, but I find that they help me pass the time when I’m by myself or during quite periods when my crew is still sleeping.

    Everyone in my family has an “electronics bag” that they carry their stuff in when we travel. During our summer vacation this year I got tickled watching everyone pack their gadget bags. I had everyone lay their stuff out on our coffee table and I snapped a quick photo. The image is below. As you can see it’s quite a bit of stuff.

    I change up my travel gear all the time. I have both a work laptop and a tablet PC. I used to travel with both machines, but it became cumbersome, especially with all the security at airports. So now I only take one machine depending on what I’m doing, i.e. when I travel for work I take my work machine and when I travel for fun I take my tablet PC.

    My other options when I travel include:

    I’ve been trying to pare it down a bit as my bag is getting heavy. I’m considering going in two completely different directions.

    Option 1: Get a Lenovo X1 Carbon to replace both my work laptop and my tablet PC, and add a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 to replace my need for note taking on a tablet.

    Option 2: Get a new Windows 8 hybrid tablet like the Samsung ATIV Smart PC to replace my work machine and take the place of my aging Lenovo t201x tablet PC. With this scenario I’d continue to carry my Samsung Tab 7.0 Plus.

    Option 2 is much cheaper, but Option 1 has a pretty solid coolness factor associated with it. I’ll mull this over for a while, at least until the new Windows 8 machines appear on the scene.

  • Tic Tac dispenser as alternative prescription bottle [video]

    All the companies that have spent millions developing a “better way” to dispense medications (tablets) should watch the video below. The company that makes Tic Tacs has you all beat. And just a guess here, but I bet that little plastic Tic Tac dispenser doesn’t cost tens of thousands of dollars.

    Someone needs to develop a prescription bottle that works like this. Walgreens has been doing a lot of consumer prescription stuff lately. Perhaps they would be interested in investing a little time, energy and effort. Never know.

    File this one under idea: #10987.

  • Saturday morning coffee [August 18 2012]

    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 to the right is my trophy for winning the 2010 ASHP Midyear Twitter contest. It was the second year in a row that I was voted winner of the Midyear tweeting contest. I have since retired. The mug was accompanied by a $50 Best Buy gift card. I can’t remember what I purchased with the gift card, but I’m sure it was something cool.

    - The Bourne Legacy was the new #1 at the box office last weekend, knocking the Dark Knight Rises off its perch. My family and I saw it. It was good, but not great. I would see it again. The problem with a new Bourne movie is that Matt Damon is who I think of when someone says “Bourne” regardless of whether or not the movie is about his character. Don’t expect The Bourne Legacy to sit in the number one spot for long. I think The Expendables 2 will likely take over the top spot next week. I’ll certainly help it gain the title as it’s on my movie agenda for this weekend.
    (more…)