Blogs

Happy new years! With a new year and 6 solid months of pharmacy informatics experience, it is time to re-visit "Internal Med? There's an app for that!" with an another perspective.

--

Timothy Cole asked an intriguing question on ASHP Connect regarding an "Apple friendly Hospital":

Hello everyone!

I'd like to know if anyone out there knows of or has worked for an Apple based hospital or at least an Apple friendly hospital? The hospital I work at uses Meditech and PCs and it just seems like there HAS to be a better way to do things.
What is your experience / opinion of the most user friendly EMR / PHA module / system? What about one that is the most consistent or the most efficient?

    The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe) has just released the fourth volume of its eHealth series, “Safety and security on the Internet: Challenges and advances in Member States“.

I was glad to have helped serve as a lead author for this edition and was similarly happy to see the reviewers listed in the volume had representation from the international pharmacy world.

This eHealth series volume explored survey results from over 100 participating countries. Data in the publication were originally collected as part of the second global survey on eHealth by WHO. This fourth volume of the GOe eHealth series was focused on four major areas:

*Internet pharmacy
*Online health information seeking and quality
*Digital literacy
*Internet safety and security

Notably, the process of legally purchasing medications online still lacks a global consensus, as most (66%) countries still do not have any legislation in place that specifies if Internet pharmacy operations are either allowed or prohibited.

The 86-page report fully characterizes the findings from these outlined domains. It also includes case studies that illustrate the advances and challenges in these arenas such as the Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (USA & Canada) for Internet pharmacies and the Health On the Net Foundation (Switzerland) and PeRRSonalized Medicine (Hungary) for online health information quality.

We are very excited that the Nova Southeastern University College of Pharmacy has officially launched our Center for Consumer Health Informatics Research (CCHIR)! Like all undertakings of this magnitude, it has been in the works for some time and has benefited from tremendous support from many corners - in particular the Chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice and the Dean of the College of Pharmacy. Below is a presentation outlining some basics about the Center. I look forward to working with its faculty and collaborators and steering the CCHIR toward many great developments in the future.

Launching a Center for Consumer Health Informatics Research

The 45th Annual Meeting of the Florida Society of Health-System Pharmacists (FSHP) was held in Orlando during the weekend. Since it is a state organization conference, it is much smaller than gatherings like the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting. This allowed for a streamlined set of programming tracks and a more relaxed atmosphere. There were also some interesting individual sessions (and necessities) on medication errors, pain management, etc.  I particularly liked the presentation on "Cyberhealth", which focused on issues with Internet Pharmacy. Additionally, I had the opportunity to present "Pharmacy: Is there an app for you" at the meeting.

@kevinclauson

Pharmacy: Is there an app for you

Clinical decision support is equal parts aiding the clinician to 'automagically' make the right decision and presenting options in a way that is intuitive. Being afforded the luxury to design the user interface of clinical design support advisors also brings up unique challenges. The clinical information may be very precise and accurate, but there is a need to present it in a way that facilitates a good user experience.

Speaking to programmers and developers, there is one usability book that is universally recommended: "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug.

I'm going to pick up a copy and review it shortly.

Whether you hate Apple or love them, they also have a very good set of usability guidelines here.

via rxinformatica

I'm near the end of my clinical pediatric rotation and have had a unique opportunity to look at how clinical information systems (CIS) are used in peds. Everytime I've encountered pediatric medicine someone has stated the dogma of "peds are not tiny adults." That certainly makes sense from a pharmacokinetic perspective, but how do we teach that to our information systems?

Since we use the same computerized provider order entry (CPOE) system and pharmacy system for pediatrics and adults, it creates all sorts of havoc that we must solve. Examples:

• Should you barcode breast milk? If so, how?
• Up until birth, the mother and fetus are treated as '1' patient in the record, do you create another patient record upon birth (*hint* yes, you should)? If so, how? How does this affect your admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) system?
• How do you handle a drug (eg., cefotaxime) that is formulary for peds and non-formulary for adults in the same system?
• What happens when a drug (eg., desmopressin) intended to be used one route (nasal) is actually used for another (oral)?

These questions if not addressed appropriately can create all sorts of therapeutic and safety problems. A majority of pharmacy related issues specifically concern clinical decision support (CDS) and drug file manipulations.