Blogs

Reversing aging

By Dennis Tribble posted 5 days ago
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I received a number of investing emails today, all of which pointed to a private gene therapy company that is claiming that it can reverse aging, potentially making someone older (like me) physiologically 10 years younger. Reportedly, the FDA has cleared them for Phase I testing in humans, testing it on restoring sight in patients who have become blind. Apparently this has already been successfully done in animal studies. I don't intend to promote this company here. You can read about it here if you are interested. The questions it raises in my mind are less about whether this actually works than about what if it actually does? What would be the societal ...
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Pharmacy General Intelligence: Q2 2026 Update

By Ben Michaels posted 12 days ago
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Pharmacy General Intelligence: Q2 2026 Update Building on our Q1 2026 update, welcome to the second quarter review of 2026 tracking the evolution of artificial intelligence through the lens of Pharmacy General Intelligence (PGI). If early 2026 was about integration, Q2 is characterized by a dramatic reckoning with costs, a surge in autonomous capabilities, and the urgent need/implementation of regulatory guardrails. Here is a breakdown of the trends shaping PGI into Healthcare Industry Trends, AI Technological Advancements, and Policy Shifts. Healthcare Industry Trends Over 80% of physicians now use AI professionally, primarily for summarizing medical ...
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Phenol 6%

By Erica Marchese posted 20 days ago
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Hi, Looking for some guidance. Several of our pharmacy sites have encountered challenges obtaining Phenol 6% for pain procedures. While we have previously sourced this product from 503B sites, many are now halting or discontinuing its compounding. Has anyone else experienced similar challenges? If so, which compounding pharmacies or vendors are you currently utilizing? Additionally, have you had to transition to an alternative product? Thank you!
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Advocating for EHR Development Using Stories and Data

By Aracely Sosa posted 06-05-2026
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Advocating for EHR Development Using Stories and Data Written By: Aracely Sosa, PharmD; Emily Gamroth, PharmD; Elizabeth Hartell, PharmD, MHI, Laleh Javanbakht, PharmD, BCPS Introduction The continuous optimization and development of electronic health records (EHRs) is a requirement that stems not only from legislative mandates such as those from the HITECH Act, 21st Century Cures Act, and more, but also from a system need to have and use EHRs that are up-to-date, consistent, and flexible to meet current clinical practice while also incorporating the variability of practice across healthcare institutions. Advocating for EHR development ...
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From Data to Direction: Building Analytics Pharmacy Leaders Can Trust – Part 2 – Dashboard Build, Implementation, and Maintenance

By Ben Moore posted 06-01-2026
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Written By: David Ngo, PharmD, BCPS, MBA; Ben Moore, PharmD, MHCI; Killian Rodgers, PharmD, MS Edited By: Alexis Berndt, PharmD, BCPS; Ryan Cello, PharmD, FASHP In part 1 , we discussed clearly defining the problem you are trying to solve and think ing about the story you want to tell when developing KPIs and metrics. Similarly , b uilding dashboards should always begin with the goal in mind. How do we design and create our dashboards to answer questions , not just show off data ? T e l l i n g t h e S t o ry Creating dashboards ...
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From Data to Direction: Building Analytics Pharmacy Leaders Can Trust – Part 1 – Developing Metrics and KPIs

By Ryan Cello posted 05-28-2026
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Written By: Alexis Berndt, PharmD, BCPS; Ryan Cello, PharmD, FASHP Edited By: David Ngo, PharmD, BCPS, MBA; Ben Moore, PharmD, MHCI; Killian Rodgers, PharmD, MS Developing metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) can be a daunting task for any pharmacy leader or analyst, but is crucial to developing analytical products that actually drive change. In this post we dive into how to approach the development of metrics and KPIs using the example of the 2024 Hurricane Helene IV fluid shortage. This event forced many health systems across the country to quickly develop and deploy metrics that tracked their utilization and the success ...
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Advancing Medication Delivery: Leveraging Autonomous Mobile Robots in Pharmacy Practice

By Sherwyn Tenia posted 05-14-2026
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Advancing Medication Delivery: Leveraging Autonomous Mobile Robots in Pharmacy Practice Authors: Abraham Kim, PharmD, PMP, APh; Elizabeth Jochum, PharmD, BCPS; Gelson J Taube Jr, PharmD, BCPS; Sherwyn Tenia, PharmD, MBA, BCPS, PMP SAG: Clinical Applications Introduction Hospital pharmacy teams are being asked to do more than ever, yet much time is still spent on tasks that don’t require clinical expertise . While automated dispensing cabinets and optimized cart fills have reduced manual distribution work, pharmacists and technicians are still involved in the delivery medications to units, ...
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Pharmacy General Intelligence: Q1 2026 Update

By Ben Michaels posted 03-31-2026
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Building on our Q4 2025 update, welcome to the first quarter review of 2026 tracking the evolution of artificial intelligence through the lens of Pharmacy General Intelligence (PGI). As a reminder, PGI focuses on AI's potential to perform at or beyond the level of a pharmacist, paving the way for autonomous agents to handle medication verification, dose adjustments, and direct patient care. If last year was about proof-of-concept, early 2026 is defined by integration and systemic restructuring. 1 AI is shifting from a new technology into expected, invisible infrastructure. Continuing our pattern here is a breakdown of the industry trends, technological advancements, ...
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Tag! You’re IT! The current and future state of RFID

By Stacy Carson posted 03-16-2026
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Stacy L. Carson, PharmD, BCPS, FISMP; Samuel Ubanyionwu, PharmD, EMBA; Audrey Ruotolo, PharmD, BCPS; James Fiebert, PharmD, CPHIMS; Darren S. Ferer, BS Pharm, CPHIMS; Kevin Smith, PharmD, HMBA, BCPS, PMP Background : Radio Frequency Identification, commonly known as RFID, is a wireless technology used to identify and track items through the use of radio waves. It relies on electromagnetic signals to transfer data between devices without requiring direct contact or line of sight like a barcode reader 1 . An RFID system is made up of three main components: an RFID tag, an RFID reader, and a computer database. These components work in harmony ...
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Faster than I expected - Final rule for the 12-digit NDC

By Dennis Tribble posted 03-09-2026
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Last Thursday (3/5/2026), The FDA published its final rule on revising the National Drug Format and Drug Label Barcode Requirements . Last September I published an analysis of the impact of this change . I did not expect the change to be formalized this quickly. I should note one error in the article, which is that, in a non-NDC GTIN-14 barcode, the check-digit is the last character of the 14-digit GTIN as opposed to being an additional character after the GTIN. Specifically, this effects Figures 4 and 5, but does not otherwise change their meaning. The short story is: Industry will no longer be able to use the GTIN-12 (aka UPC) 12-digit format ...
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An iPhone moment...

By Dennis Tribble posted 03-05-2026
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On January 6, 2026, Eli Lilly and Nvidia announced collaboration for an innovation lab for drug discovery . Mon Monday, March 2, 2026, Keith Kohl, a publisher on technology markets and investing, announced on Monday that the AI system had been built and went live this week. I won't quote it here; you should read it for yourself and I urge you to do do. What this presages is a new world in which drug development that once took decades to reach human testing, with a 90% failure rate will now take months with with wet lab analysis and clinical trials limited to those that pass the "dry lab" analysis of AI. How will this affect human studies? How will ...
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Paying It Forward: How Mentorship Became Central to My Professional Identity

By Mariah Bobo posted 02-27-2026
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Mentorship has consistently been at the heart of my professional journey, forming the foundation of who I am as I prepare to enter the pharmacy profession in just a few short months. Throughout my training, mentors showed up for me in ways that went far beyond academic guidance. They saw my potential before I fully recognized it myself, offered encouragement during moments of uncertainty, and helped me navigate spaces that often felt unfamiliar or intimidating across various settings. These relationships shaped not only my career path, but also my confidence and sense of belonging within the profession. My background has deeply shaped why mentorship ...
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The Illusion of Accuracy - Part 2

By Dennis Tribble posted 02-16-2026
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I have recently spent some time in the Hazardous Drug space and have encountered another instance in which it seems to me that we pretend to achieve levels of precision which seem unlikely. Specifically, I have looked at dosing per square meter of Body Surface Area (BSA). There is a BSA Calculator that shows my BSA (ok... I'm old... and a bit overweight) from 8 different formulas that range between 1.93 m 2 and 2.1 m 2 . That doesn't seem like much until you start looking at the dosing. If you take the standard dosing for Fluorouracil (2400 mg/m 2 ), that means that a dose for me ranges somewhere between 4,632 mg and 5,040 mg (over 400 mg difference) depending ...
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Failure is an Option: How Pharmacists Learn, Adapt, and Lead in an AI-Augmented Workforce

By Susan Flaker posted 02-06-2026
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When we were in pharmacy school the perils of a medication error were drilled into our head. We are taught that it is the role of the pharmacist to catch these errors and prevent them from getting to the patient. We are trained to be meticulous in everything we do; we are trained to be perfect. In the world of Artificial Intelligence, perfection is no longer an option. It is through our failures that we learn our greatest lessons and are able to grow and develop our skills more than we can when using books or theoretical case studies. I had never felt this was more prevalent than when I realized that a project I was working on failed. We were ...
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Q4 2025 Update: Charting the Course Towards Pharmacy General Intelligence (PGI)

By Ben Michaels posted 01-06-2026
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Pharmacy General Intelligence: Q4 2025 Update Welcome to the last update for 2025 tracking the evolution of AI through the lens of Pharmacy General Intelligence (PGI). As a reminder, PGI focuses specifically on AI's potential to perform at or beyond the level of a pharmacist, which could lead to AI agents integrating into pharmacy workflows for tasks like medication verification, dose adjustments, and patient counseling notes. Q4 2025 was filled with policy, industry, and technology shifts and additionally, Q4 will be remembered as the time that AI started to get political. Maybe driven by the elections in November or other factors, for ...
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An interesting technology that might blur the line between compounding and manufacturing

By Dennis Tribble posted 12-19-2025
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One of the more interesting technologies on display in the MCM exhibit hall was a compounding system for personalized medication doses that looked a lot like a 3-D printer but was not. Rather, it consumes a mixture of drug and compounding base and extrudes the required amount of the mixture into formed cups that produce individual doses of drug. The base that was used at the show produced a gummy. Learn more about the device at curitylabs.com . Their approach appears to presume that the pharmacy has access to active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) that it can mix with the appropriate base to produce a mixture from which individual doses can be molded into ...
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Where gravimetrics fits

By Dennis Tribble posted 12-12-2025
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I read with some interest the article by Greszler et al regarding recommendations for implementation of gravimetric systems. Among the authors of this article are individuals I have known for a long time and whom I greatly admire. Their recommendations regarding the implementation of gravimetric systems are a step forward. It was gratifying to have my blog on the illusion of accuracy quoted. That blog contains other information that I think is important to consider when talking about what gravimetrics can, and cannot address. Gravimetrics only works if you positively know what drug preparation you are measuring . One cannot know the density by which ...
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AI Pharmacist verification is a data problem…..not an AI problem.

By Ben Michaels posted 12-03-2025
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Last year, at the 2024 ASHP Conference for Pharmacy Leaders in Chicago, I recall receiving a particular question following our second presentation. During the Q&A session, an audience member asked, "When will there be an AI pharmacist verification product?" What was particularly interesting about this question is that the question was not “if”, but “when” will this product exist. Until that point, I had only been asked if it was possible. At the time, I responded within the next 5 years and with recent developments, the possibility of AI verification built into our EMRs seems more realistic now than it was a year ago. Before we dive into the specifics ...
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Who will bell the cat?

By Dennis Tribble posted 11-17-2025
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I have read with some interest recent publications about the application of AI in pharmacy practice. Ben Michaels' Update describes a number of issues that need to be addressed before the plethora of EMR data can be used to try to drive pharmacy API models that might be useful, chief among which is the poor quality of such data and the wide variety of (or complete lack of ) standards by which concepts in that data are expressed. I also noted Scott Nelson's report on which also calls out the need for both data stewardship and participation of pharmacists in the development of such models. You will need a valid login to AJHP's website to get a copy. It is ...
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The Network Effect: How Every Experience Shapes Your Pharmacy Path

By Kate Luong posted 10-17-2025
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Networking is one of the most important yet often overlooked parts of a pharmacy student’s journey. It’s more than collecting contacts; it’s about building genuine relationships that can help you learn, grow, and discover new opportunities. From getting involved in research to joining student organizations, volunteering in your community, connecting with professionals during APPE rotations, or meeting peers and mentors at national conferences, each experience contributes to your personal and professional development. The connections you make today can shape the kind of pharmacist you become tomorrow. In this blog, several students share how networking ...
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