Podcasting? What is that?

This is my personal weblog. I do a lot of surfing and general research into emerging information technologies. Some of them are not related to Pharmacy at all. Anything I see that is interesting, I will post it here. Just consider it a place to get to know my hobbies and interests a bit better. Each user that registers on pharmacyit.net will also get his or her own weblog. Feel free to do the same as me. This is a community, and part of a community is getting to know each other.

McKesson APS: PACMED™ Multi-Dose Packaging Technology

Pre-filling Medications

This kind of operation always leaves me with questions. I am curious to know how many return to stocks the pharmacy ends up doing with this type of process. Some patients do not pick their meds up even when they call it in themselves. I am not sure a reminder will help.
I would like to see a simple time study analysis that takes into consideration the time it takes to fill and return those prescriptions to stock the patient forgets to pick up. Of course, we would compare this to the current baseline and add in any gain in business for consumer convenience.

PDAs Expected to Change Health Care in Future Interesting, especially when Sony has stopped developing and manufacturing its PDA line in the US, and Palm has decided to allow Windows Mobile onto its hardware platform. I really think the PDA is just a bit too small to be of any real use.... We have to come to the realization that these devices are not going to be good for inputting information (at current technology), but tools for reading and interpreting.... It is a great concept, but a bit too big to lug around in the hospital on rounds and not quite user friendly enough to write SOAP notes on. After all, one of the major issues is handwriting and transcription errors.

Asteres Products:

As a continuation of previous posts, here is what KioskMarketplace rates as the best of the bunch.

These are some of the machines the California State Board of Pharmacy has given provisional status to. This will present some interesting competition to Automation companies that provide Bin Management solutions. There are others in the market, but the Kiosk just seems like a double benefit.

Medication Error in Hospital

Hospitals seek Rx for human error: Better technology, clearer communications may help eliminate problems cited in recent report

Verbal order misunderstandings? Sound-alike drug errors? These certainly ring a bell to Pharmacists. Nothing in the article is surprising. We read about these types of errors all the time. The question is can technology prevent them? Do we trade off one error type for another with the adoption of technologies?

Telepharmacy Proposal Request D--The TRICARE Management Activity(TMA)is conducting research to determine whether a commercial system is available to meet requirements of a Department of Defense(DoD)Telepharmacy solution(DoD Telepharmacy)for the Military Health System(MHS). I recall talks when I was in the Military. Basically they are looking for a video teleconferencing system that integrates with automation/dispensing technology. This allows a pharmacist at site A to check an RX that is 500 miles away that a technician filled, by reviewing a scanned image of the hard copy and seeing the pills in the bottle.