Technology

What appear to be garden-variety medication carts travel the halls (alone) at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, delivering medications to 3 critical-care units.

SCRIPT Version 10.6, the standard for e-prescribing and related transactions that the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs has been recommending for several years, will be coming into use in upcoming months.

As healthcare moves swiftly toward a more comprehensive electronic platform, pharmacies will be required to upgrade their claim submission standard from NCPDP 5.1 to NCPDP D.0, an updated version of the HIPAA standard for pharmacy claims transactions.

Pharmacists at the University of California San Francisco are in the process of bringing one of the world's largest and most advanced robotic pharmacies online.

Pharmacy technology 2010

The latest pharmacy technologies include IVR, telepharmacy, cell-phone-based automatic refill reminders, a compact robotic dispenser, remote dispensing, and CPOE pharmacy management.

Use of bar-code technology is widespread in the general retail environment. Its advantages have not yet been fully exploited in the hospital and community-pharmacy settings.

In every pharmacy, continuous quality improvement is an essential safeguard. For two approaches that guarantee best practices, read on.

The number of e-prescriptions filled last year soared 181% to 191 million, according to "Advancing Healthcare in America," a report issued by Surescripts in Alexandria, Va.

Oregon's law requiring prescriptions for pseudoephedrine products practically eliminated its illicit methamphetamine problem. But some pharmacists, consumer groups, and the drug industry say that it will increase healthcare costs and inconvenience consumers. They think electronic sales-tracking systems would be a better approach.