Blogs

Generative AI

By Dennis Tribble posted 6 days ago
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In reading an article regarding what some consider 10 trends to watch in healthcare, I encountered a term I was unfamiliar with, the #1 item, Generative AI.   According to Technopedia , Generative AI “is a broad label that's used to describe any type of artificial intelligence (AI) that can be used to create new text, images, video, audio, code or synthetic data” where synthetic data is “data input that is generated mathematically from a statistical model. Synthetic data plays an important role in finance, healthcare, and artificial intelligence (AI) when it is used to protect personally identifiable information (PII) in raw data and fabricate ...
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Mental Health In Community Pharmacy: It's Time To Talk

By Brianna Nelson posted 13 days ago
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Background Mental Health is described as the emotional, psychological, and social well-being that affects all aspects of our life. It influences how we think, feel, and act.(3) Mental health also has a vast contribution to our health, increasing the risk of many chronic disease states like diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. With 1 in 5 US adults living with mental illnesses, it is one of the most common health conditions.(1) Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is a course that teaches you how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders.(2) The training guides you through an essential step-by-step action ...
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Women (Men Invited) SM Networking Session

By Sara White posted 20 days ago
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ASHP Summer Meeting Women (Men Invited) Pharmacy Leadership Networking Session 0 Recommend Sara White Posted one second ago Reply Options Dropdown I would like to invite you to participate and possibly moderated a networking table Saturday, June 10 4;30-5:30 Baltimore Convention Center. There will be some questions to stimulate the discussion but the roundtables are intended to allow you to voice your questions and benefit from others experiences. Please let me know if you are willing to moderate a table. Thanks a bunch Sara ------------------------------ ...
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Data Quality

By Dennis Tribble posted 05-01-2023
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Another pearl from Intelligent Medical Objects with thoughts I would like to share.   In my work analyzing data across organizations, one of the things that I constantly stumble on is the lack of data quality both within and between various health systems. The short story seems to be that the process of gathering our healthcare data focuses mostly on getting data into our systems in any way possible, and rarely on ensuring that the data is usable when we try to get it back out.   I make this assertion without prejudice; most of us in healthcare professions do not see ourselves as data gatherers or data stewards. The generation of data is a secondary ...
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Channeling Brene' Brown by Being Vulnerable with Learners

By Kristin Watson posted 04-30-2023
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Being vulnerable can be scary or uncomfortable for many of us. However, stepping outside our comfort zone can lead to remarkable things. Dr. Brené Brown got the world talking about shame and vulnerability after her TEDxHouston Talk that took the world by storm in 2010. (Brown 2010) Since then, Dr. Brown has become a New York Times best-selling author and has changed the mindset of so many. How does her research impact what we do as pharmacy educators?   Vulnerability is defined as “open to attack or damage; capable of being physically or emotionally wounded”. (Merrian-Webster 2023) Students in the classroom must confront vulnerability when deciding ...
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A Week in the Life: ASHP Extern Week 4

By Madison Collins posted 04-22-2023
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Friday, April 21  marks the end of my fourth week at ASHP. As much of a cliché as it is; “time flies when you’re having fun” truly applies to my experience.             This rotation has been challenging my brain in different ways every week. Talking to staff and members of ASHP with different backgrounds, compiling and analyzing information, and using my creative side to come up with topics for a pharmacy technician podcast are just a few of the things I’ve worked on!             One of the biggest differences between this rotation and a traditional clinical pharmacy rotation, is this rotation’s independence. This may be in part due to the mentoring/precepting ...
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A Week in the Life: ASHP Extern Week 3

By Madison Collins posted 04-17-2023
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This week at ASHP was momentous for multiple reasons. It not only marks the halfway point for my rotation, but the ASHP Strategic Planning Retreat also took place this week, and I have 3 weeks left until graduation!             The ASHP Strategic Planning Retreat is an annual meeting that lasts a day and a half where ASHP staff, ASHP Section and Forum Chairs, and members of the ASHP Board of Directors come together to discuss ASHP’s future strategic plans. This meant that pharmacists and technicians from across the country met at ASHP headquarters to discuss the future of pharmacy and I was able to attend!             The retreat was a mixture ...
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A Week in the Life: ASHP Extern Week 2

By Madison Collins posted 04-10-2023
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Week 2, as an ASHP student extern, has been a whirlwind of meeting new people, setting up meetings, and managing projects. This rotation is challenging my skills in different ways than any clinical pharmacy rotation has before. While most of my clinical rotations have had a structured daily schedule including pre-rounds, rounds, medication reconciliation, topic discussions, etc., I have much more freedom in setting the pace and activities of my daily schedule. Between setting up meetings with different ASHP staff members and working on different assigned projects, it requires a different level of mindfulness to get the most out of this rotation.             ...
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At Last! Research on Operations!

By Dennis Tribble posted 04-01-2023
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One of the ongoing worries I have is that there seems to be very little interest in performing and publishing research on pharmacy operations. Clinical practice is important, but its effect can be diminished if the medications are not available when needed. A notable exception to this trend was a student poster by Anjali Talwar, Claudia Reyes Esteves and Melissa Martin entitled Optimizing an Inpatient Hospital’s Pharmacy Technician Operation to Improve Medication Delivery and Reduce Delays in Patient Care at the Midyear Clinical Meeting in Las Vegas. When I saw it, it warmed my heart. In brief, this poster by used information readily available and implemented ...
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ChatGPT and DIASTAT ® : Think Fast!

By Bridget Betts posted 03-29-2023
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an increasingly popular topic of discussion among healthcare providers in various settings, including pharmacy practice. These tools can introduce groundbreaking innovations to the practice environment, and while their introduction comes with numerous opportunities – it also comes with many questions as well as hesitancy for adoption.    In this blog, we are going to explore a tool called ChatGPT and detail a specific opportunity that could be useful for pharmacy practice through a real-world example.    ChatGPT – or Chat Generative Pre- Trained Transformer – is a tool launched ...
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Shkreli Awards

By Dennis Tribble posted 02-28-2023
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Perhaps I wear rose-colored glasses, but I was astounded by an article from Becker’s Hospital Review regarding the Lown Institute and their sixth annual Shkreli Awards. For those of you who may not remember, Martin Shkreli was an investor who became infamous for profiteering by buying the only manufacturer of the medication Daraprim and then raising the price from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill and wound up going to jail for it. The Lown Institute’s award is given to individuals or organizations who appear to have shamelessly profiteered at the expense of our patients or our fellow healthcare professionals. I guess I just never realized how prolific ...
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Involving pharmacy students in vaccination efforts

By Magdi Awad posted 02-13-2023
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By Mohenad Rasoul, PharmD, PGY-1 Pharmacy resident, AxessPointe Community Health Centers/ Northeast Ohio Medical University, and  Magdi Awad, PharmD, MSA, Director of Pharmacy, AxessPointe Community Health Centers/Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice, Northeast Ohio Medical University Upwards of 224 million people in the United States have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Pharmacy students, along with their respective colleges, have played a significant role in the recruitment, facilitation, and administration of COVID-19 vaccines over the past few years. These students have significantly lowered the burden on hospitals, outpatient clinics, and ...
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Straight “A’s” for Pharmacy Technicians: The Importance of Advocacy and Advancement

By Curstain Wheatley posted 02-13-2023
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Have you ever wondered how you as a pharmacy technician can get involved and make real changes to your profession? Advocacy is one of the ways you can achieve personal and professional change in pharmacy. Advocacy shows active support of an idea or cause and is usually an activity done by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions. Even if you have never thought to yourself, “How can I change the pharmacy technician world,” you have more than likely had a few thoughts surrounding these topics: the need for certified technicians; income deficits; job stability and retention; education and licensure requirements; opportunity for advancement; ...
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Details of a Remote Pharmacy Model

By Irene Chia posted 02-08-2023
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Written By: Irene Chia, PharmD – PGY1 Community-Based Pharmacy Resident Edited By: Gina Luchen, PharmD – ASHP Director of Member Relations Ever since the spread of COVID-19, many companies have adapted to virtual or remote models of work. This has impacted the type of job offers that attract more applicants – whether they are fully in-person, hybrid, or fully remote work. “Majority of workers with jobs that can be done from home are teleworking, even as more workplaces have become available” (Pew Research Center). Many may prefer remote work not only to be safe from potential infectious exposure but also due to relocation or convenience in balancing work ...
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Could we apply this tool to our informatics practice?

By Dennis Tribble posted 01-31-2023
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I happened across another interesting blog entitled “ How simulation can overcome bias and objectively test design performance ” that I urge you to read. In this blog, two architects describe how their use of a simulation modeling tool allows them to test designs for physical space against the users and workflows that need to occur within them to overcome both the biases of the designers (design preconceptions) and the biases of those for whom they are designing. One sentence from this blog particularly struck me “ It can be difficult for clinicians to understand the implications of design decisions. Their perception of space is often more shaped by a memorable ...
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Seven Healthcare IT Trends to Watch

By Dennis Tribble posted 12-31-2022
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I happened across this blog on HIT Consultant describing seven trends in healthcare IT regarding the health IT operational burden. It is worthy of a read and made me think about how those burdens are reflected in pharmacy informatics. Most significantly, the blog presented a graphic that broke down IT operational burden into five categories and assigned a portion of operational burden to each, based on the responses of CIOs to a survey: Health IT resource retention and budget– 65% - are you seeing times when IT resources you require are just not available? Management of demand and prioritization while executing multiple initiatives – 11% - are ...
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What should good manufacturing processes be for software as a medical device (SaMD)?

By Dennis Tribble posted 11-30-2022
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This may be a duplicate as I thought I had scheduled it once before, but it isn't showing up in my blog or my schedule. I had a chance to read a blog today describing how our basic concept of device good manufacturing practices needs to be enhanced to deal with the increasing presence of medical devices that consist solely of software. I must confess I was expecting this discussion to be about “loosening the controls” for software and was pleasantly surprised to see a more serious discussion about how to interpret the requirements found in ISO 13485 (the fundamental basis of cGMP for devices) for application to software systems. For those of you who aren’t ...
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ASHP PELE SAG Blog - How to Help a Pharmacy Resident Overcome Imposter Syndrome

By Deanna Fliehman posted 11-11-2022
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What is Imposter Syndrome? Impostor syndrome is a psychological pattern of successful individuals attributing their achievements to luck, rather than their own intellect, performance, and skill. 1-5 High-performing individuals feel like they are “impostors,” in their current positions and stress about being discovered as a fraud. 1,2 People who experience impostor syndrome doubt their knowledge, competence, and abilities. 1 Do pharmacy residents experience imposter syndrome? The literature has consistently shown that pharmacy students and residents experience imposter syndrome. A study by Medina et al. demonstrated that impostor syndrome was common ...
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Why AI has not transformed healthcare

By Dennis Tribble posted 10-30-2022
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I just read an interesting article in Politico entitled “ Artificial intelligence was supposed to transform health care. It hasn’t . [1] ” The article highlights the prediction that AI capabilities would render the need for human radiologists obsolete and then notes this clearly has not happened. While the article does describe some real barriers, I would like to point out some very real issues about AI in healthcare (and other high-risk endeavors) that are fundamentally different than the commercial environments in which AI is clearly flourishing. Before we dive into that, let us review some high-level thoughts on why AI may be thriving in retail: ...
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Suggesting Enhancements to Your Software Vendor

By Dennis Tribble posted 10-01-2022
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With a little over 35 years on the vendor side of the software environment, I have read quite a few customer requests for software enhancements. Indeed, one of my current roles involves reviewing enhancement suggestions for software projects. Nothing in the list that follows is intended to keep you from suggesting changes to software. Enhancement requests represent an important conversation between you and your software vendor. The way those requests are phrased, however, can play an important role in how they are received and used by the vendor. As a result, I have some suggestions that may help users be more successful in getting their enhancements considered. ...
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