- ICD-10 Could Challenge Emergency Rooms (pharmacytimes.com)
…changeover to ICD-10 medical diagnosis codes could complicate tasks in emergency departments…researchers...looked at more than 24,000 clinical encounters in the emergency room, they found that nearly a quarter could be assigned incorrect ICD-10 codes…also…27% of 1830 ICD-9 indicator codes commonly used by emergency physicians had convoluted mappings to ICD-10 codes that could pose problems for clinical documentation, reimbursement, disease reporting, and justifying hospital admissions…Depending on the analytic programs that the pharmacies use to predict how much medications to store and how complex the transition to ICD-10 is, pharmacies might have shortages of medications due to inaccurate reports and algorithms..
- EMV Chip Cards: What Pharmacies Need to Know (pharmacytimes.com)Credit and Debit Cards Lag on Upgrades -Half of Americans won’t get a chip-loaded card by the deadline. (bloomberg.com)
Independent pharmacies will want to consider updating their credit card processing terminals to accept EMV chip cards this fall…Named after their original developers (Europay, MasterCard, and Visa), EMV cards have a small, metallic square on the front of the card that serves as a microprocessor to store data securely, making the cards nearly impossible to counterfeit…starting October 1...the liability for credit card fraud will shift from banks to stores that are not EMV compliant…liability will shift to "whichever party is the least EMV-complaint in certain fraudulent transactions...
- 7 Ways Pharmacies Can Boost Their Facebook Page (pharmacytimes.com)
A Facebook page can be a useful tool for cultivating patient loyalty, promoting pharmacy services, and educating patients. Pharmacists who want to increase engagement on their pharmacy’s Facebook page should follow these tips:
- Maintain a Steady Flow of Content
- Use Photos and Call to Actions
- Respond to Questions or Comments
- Track Your Facebook Analytics
- Target Your Content
- Pay for More Eyeballs
- Refrain from Posting Negative Content
- Analysis shows pharma is getting better at R&D (mmm-online.com)
A new analysis of pharma research and development data shows that drugmakers have become increasingly successful in identifying the right candidates for drug development and getting them to market in recent years…From 2010 to 2014, one out of every 13 drugs in phase-I development came to market—compared to one of 19 phase-I drug candidates making it from 2007 to 2011,…Developing a drug takes 10 years on average currently, which is 40% longer than it took 15 years ago…Drug discovery—defined as all the work leading up to human clinical trials—has remained steady, taking four years on average.
- PrescribeWellness Launches StarWellness+ (finance.yahoo.com)
Pharmacies can more easily manage their patients on medication synchronization...PrescribeWellness …launched StarWellness+, an add-on service to PrescribeWellness’ popular Med Sync software, StarWellness…empowers pharmacies…to streamline their workflow for patients enrolled in medication synchronization….the pharmacist can push synced medications into the workflow queue of virtually any pharmacy management system… will help them expand their med sync offering and improve adherence with hundreds of their patients…
- 5 More Pharmacy Technician Training Programs Coming Soon (pharmacytimes.com)
Many community colleges have chosen to meet the increasing demand for highly trained pharmacy technicians by developing training courses…Technician training programs help students cultivate the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in the changing pharmacy environment, and also prepare them to take the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board exam. Some states even require technicians to complete an accredited course before working in a pharmacy. Information about more schools that have recently opened technician training programs can be found here.
- Belmont College (St. Clairsville, Ohio)
- College of the Redwoods (Eureka, California)
- Illinois Valley Community College (Oglesby, Illinois)
- Iowa Western Community College (Council Bluffs, Iowa)
- Tri-County Technical College (Pendleton, South Carolina)
- Docs are paying more for technology than ever before (healthcareitnews.com)
Medical practices across the U.S. are now spending a lot more on technology this year, up nearly 34 percent from four years ago,…"As technology continues to evolve, medical practices must likewise also evolve,…"The way patients ask for and receive care is changing. The increased use of technology can improve the quality of patient care by improving records management, optimizing workflow and meeting HIPAA compliancy requirements."
- Live ICD-10 updates: Get the latest news, reactions to the code change (healthcareitnews.com)
It's October 1, 2015, the ICD-10 diagnostic code set is live at last, and medical professionals now have nearly 70,000 codes to choose from when filing patient claims…Healthcare IT News and sister site Healthcare Finance will be reporting on the changeover throughout the day, using the live blog below to highlight the latest news, real-time reactions and frequent updates from our cadre of volunteer ICD-10 correspondents, a group of healthcare insiders who have agreed to keep us posted on what they're seeing post-switchover.
- 7,000 scientists. 100 years. One lifesaving treatment. (washingtonpost.com)100 Years to Find a Cure: Can the Process be Accelerated? (gladstone.org)
Here's the CliffsNotes version of how most drugs go from idea to reality: Basic academic research provides the foundation for a series of clinical trials, first in animals and then in humans, which eventually tell us whether a new treatment is safe and effective…the reality of drug development is rarely that linear or precise…the path to creating a life-saving treatment can be an extremely long, labor-intensive effort that involves thousands of scientists over many decades...
- Medjacking: The newest healthcare risk? (healthcareitnews.com)Report: Healthcare more susceptible to privacy attacks than other industries (fiercehealthit.com)
If you're looking for trends in cyber-crime, it's best to follow the money…Healthcare information is being exposed in more places every day, creating new risks for patients, providers, payers, and other organizations…medical devices…are already being hacked, a trend that is alarming hospitals and other healthcare organizations…these devices are being hacked to unlock portals into larger medical systems and steal protected health information… economics of cyber-crime,..stolen medical identities can bring in many times the price of a stolen credit card number.