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Did you know that all manufacturers are required to put a barcode on each dose by April 26th, 2006? This applies to inpatient pharmacy practice in hospitals and long term care environments.

We all agree that barcoding is a necessary step to improving patient safety. Hospital technology adoption remains as the most challenging step for the healthcare team. It is great to have barcoded medications, but useless if the hospital does not have IT infrastructure and automation systems to utilize them. These closed-loop medication administration systems cost millions to implement, and more to support.

It appears I am not the only one interested in podcasting about pharmacy. Andrew Christian at Pharmcountry.net is on #3!

His focus is on general pharmacy news, keeping us all up to date!

Andrew and I are going to get together in the next few days and chat. Thanks Andrew!

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Now, the federal government is offering training and financial incentices to providers who want to adopt Information Technology. This is another way to help win over the early adopters in Healthcare. As pharmacists, we can play a large roll in helping providers with technology solutions. We are very used to computer systems, but most of healthcare is still on paper. Help them kick the paper pushing by supporting their efforts to adopt technology.

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EHR adoption is sure to be the biggest paradigm shift in the healthcare system since preventative medicine. Many providers feel like the new systems put all the work on them. For instance, CPOE removes order entry from the pharmacy, and notes/charting takes transcriptionists out of the picture. With doctors already taxed for time, how will we manage?

We have to start by focusing on what is best for the patient, then figure out how to accommodate the healthcare team. We must migrate from current roles and responsibilities, and think about how to work best as a team. Allowing more RPh involvement in patient care alleviates a great deal of time from providers. Allowing nursing to expand their roles pays dividends, helping physicians do what they were trained to: diagnose.

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Should doctors be compensated more for preventative medicine? Basically, PBM's are getting together to arrange a pricing structure that rewards for making people healthier.

I think it is a great idea. Get a smoker to quit, get paid more. Decrease hospitalization or incidence of myocardial infarction, get a reward. This makes sense on the surface.

I am interested to see how this will drive adoption of technologies, including CPOE and electronic health records. Some type of scoring and monitoring system will need to be in place. How does that affect patient privacy?

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Need a definition? Start here. Podcasting has become an internet craze over the past year. In fact, it was identified as the most important new term of 2005 by Websters.

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The January 1, 2006 issue of AJHP provides a report on a bit of old technology. However, I think it made perfect sense. Nursing has traditionally rejected technology, relying on years of experience and "people power" to get the job done. The authors decided to provide nurses something that they could relate to. A video was distributed to a group of nurses that reviewed medication administration techniques, patient allergies, and some other necessary guidelines.

In case you have not seen these articles from December 2005 AJHP, I wanted to briefly mention them.

Hospitals Put IT in Second Place The financial climate of healthcare if forcing administrators to take a hard look at IT budgets. Most people would say this is bad, but it might be good to do more research up front before investing in costly automation and technology.