Friday, January 27, 2012

Ex-Stanford Prof Starts a Totally Free Online School

Not specifically pharmacy-related, but this story has been getting a lot of play on the various tech blogs this week
Sebastian Thrun is leaving his post as a researcher and professor at Stanford to start Udacity, which will teach Computer Science college courses online and completely free of charge. The first two courses are CS 101: Building a Search Engine and CS 373: Programming a Robotic Car.
Lots of sites have picked up this story, but here's a link to the one at Gizmodo which has a video.

Kaiser Permanente Takes Millions Of Medical Records Mobile With New Android App

One of the industry heavy weights is embracing mobile technology for patient records

... Kaiser Permanente patients can get full access to the company’s health record system and all that comes with it, which they already could do through kp.org, from their mobile devices. In 2011, Kaiser more than 68 million lab test results available online to their patients, and through the Android app and mobile web app, patients can now get 24/7 access to lab results, diagnostic information, direct and secure email access to doctors, schedule appointments, and order prescription refills.
An app for iOS is planned in the next few months.   Full story at TechCrunch

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Webinar Recording from January 25, 2012

The third TiPEL-SIG webinar of the year was a great success.   For those who missed it, the video is posted here.




Title:  Simulation Based Learning in Pharmacy Education

Presenters:
Amy L. Seybert, B.S., Pharm.D.
Interim Chair and Associate Professor, Pharmacy and Therapeutics,
University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, Pittsburgh
Associate Director for Pharmacy Programs
Peter M. Winter Institute for Simulation Education and Research (WISER Institute)

Erica J. Ottis, Pharm.D., BCPS
Clinical Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice
University of Missouri-Kansas City at MU
Clinical Specialist- Inpatient Internal Medicine

 

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Apple Unveils New iBooks Author Tool, Not Just For Textbooks

In addition to announcing iBooks 2, Apple is also introducing a free application to create books for the platform.
The process of creating an iBook is surprisingly straightforward. Creators can type their text directly into iBook Author, but Rosner noted that some people prefer doing their writing in a different environment like Microsoft Word. iBook Author plays nice with those Word documents, as it automatically picks out and creates sections and headers from the text itself when the document is dragged into a new iBook chapter. Adding images is just as simple, as users can drag them onto a page while the text reformats itself around whatever you add.
TechCrunch has the story and relevant links.

Postscript:  Gizmodo has a video entitled "How to Make an iPad Textbook in Under Five Minutes".

New iTunes U App Hits iTunes With Over 500,000 Free Lectures, Videos & Books

One of the announcements at today's Apple event was the launch of a dedicated "iTunes U" app for iOS.
The new application will allow teachers create and manage courses with components like lectures, assignments, books, quizzes and syllabuses, and offer them to iOS users via their mobile devices. Participating universities include Cambridge, Duke, Harvard, Oxford, MIT, Yale, Stanford and others. 
Full story is at TechCrunch.

Chegg Launches Mobile Reader For Online Textbooks

This may be overshadowed by whatever Apple is coming up with, but there's a story on TechCrunch about Chegg's textbook reader webapp for mobile devices.
On top of the basic functionality — letting you buy or rent textbooks to read via an internet-connected device — it includes a way to highlight and save text, write notes in the margins, write notes for any page, and view all of these annotations in an aggregated view. So you could read and mark up a chapter, and then go check out what you noted later on when you’re studying for a final.
Video and screenshots are on TechCrunch.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Is Apple going to create a "Garage Band for Textbooks"?

There are several reports that on Thursday, January 19, Apple will be announcing a new platform for creating and distributing digital textbooks.  From Gizmodo
Ahead of Thursday's NYC education event, Ars Technica reports via a leak source that Apple plans to announce a simpler way for authors to create and publish e-books as well as the iBook app's adoption of the ePub3 standard. The WSJ also names publisher McGraw-Hill as a project partner. All these developments suggest Apple's gearing up to bring textbooks to the iPad but we'll have to wait until Thursday to see
There are also stories on TUAW and Slashdot.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Drugstore wars ... on Twitter!

This is a kind of "what in the world are they thinking"?

Walgreen's is apparently trying to engage in a PR battle with ExpressScripts by sending out tweets like:
 "It's time to take a stand against @ExpressScripts. Tell them people want a choice by tweeting hashtag #ILoveWalgreens."
They also paid Twitter to push the tweet to users who don't follow Walgreen's feed.

The thing they may not have realized is that ANYONE can put #ILoveWalgreens in their tweets and become part of the conversation.  A quick look at the list shows spammers, comedians, Walgreens-bashers and various messages that I'm sure Walgreen's doesn't want associated with their brand.

Live and learn.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

iHealth's 2012 lineup revealed at CES

Engadget has  synopsis of some electronic medical devices being showcased at this year's Consumer Electronics Show.


  • Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor is a wireless update to the (wired) Blood Pressure Dock, the armband pushing your vitals over Bluetooth to an app on the device of your choice.
  • Smart GlucoMeter connects to your iDevice's 30-pin port and once you've installed the free app, you'll be able to stick smears of blood onto cardboard paddles 
  • Wireless Body Fat Scale will record your weight and measure your body fat to your device

New Pocket Projectors From 3M Pump Up The Lumens

I've not had any experience with these new "pico projectors".   As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the storage closet I have an "LCD panel" that we used to lay on top of an overhead projector.   But Techcrunch has a brief story about a series of new "Pocket Projectors" that have been demoed at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Upcoming Webinar: Simulation Based Learning in Pharmacy Education

Title:  Simulation Based Learning in Pharmacy Education

Date and Time:  Noon -  1 p.m. (Central Time) on January 25, 2012

Presenters:
Amy L. Seybert, B.S., Pharm.D.
Interim Chair and Associate Professor, Pharmacy and Therapeutics,
University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, Pittsburgh
Associate Director for Pharmacy Programs
Peter M. Winter Institute for Simulation Education and Research (WISER Institute)

Erica J. Ottis, Pharm.D., BCPS
Clinical Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice
University of Missouri-Kansas City at MU
Clinical Specialist- Inpatient Internal Medicine

Webinar Site Address: http://aacp.na5.acrobat.com/tipel
Conference Call Information:
Phone number: 1-800-377-8846<tel:1-800-377-8846>
Participant Code: 94061839#
Please log into the site as a guest using your e-mail address.
Additional Details:
·  The meeting room will open at {15 minutes prior to the event}.
·  Participants can access the audio portion of the Webinar via phone (conference call) or computer speakers. (Please mute your computer speakers if you are listening via the conference call.)
·  Participant audio input will be muted so they are not able to speak to other participants, the presenter or moderator.
·  Participants can submit questions to the moderator or IT support person via chat. The moderator will review all chat questions and ask selected questions to the presenter periodically.
·  An IT support person from AACP will be present throughout the duration of the Webinar to assist with technical support requests from participants (to be received from participants via text chat).

Webinar access information is also available on the TiPEL SIG web site at http://www.aacp.org/governance/SIGS/technology/Pages/default.aspx.

We hope to see you Wednesday, January 25th.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

When Getting Rid of College Lectures Makes Sense

Slashdot has a discussion about an NPR story where a professor discusses the success he has had moving from lectures to active learning strategies.   Fair enough.   However, he drops this little nugget:
 'With modern technology, if all there is is lectures, we don't need faculty to do it. ... Get 'em to do it once, put it on the Web, and fire the faculty.'"
Seems a bit harsh...

Self sanitizing keyboard approved by FDA

As I have to remind my students on occasion, the FDA doesn't just approve drugs.

There's a story at IT World about a keyboard that uses ultraviolet light to kill bacteria.  The authors of the article are less than impressed.

They do have this bit of wisdom in the article:
Never, ever accept a used keyboard from a hospital

Tech For Small Library Automation?

A reader at SlashDot posted this question
"I've recently been tapped as 'the tech guy' at my church where a group familiar with library automation wants to get digital with the relatively small catalog. Right now all the materials are simply on shelves, and people take an item down, fill out the paper card and drop it into a box, and we hope that people correctly calculate their own due dates and return the materials. We had a card catalog, but it went largely unused. We're looking for a complete solution for both administration and self-checkout; label printing, checkout receipts, and so on. Have any Slashdot readers found yourself in this position, and do you have recommendations based on your experiences?"
Head on over to their site to see what people have recommended.

Boston schools producing iPhone apps

Any schools out there that have a an iPhone app for recruiting students?   There's a link to a story over at TUAW that talks about what works and what doesn't for the apps produced by several Boston-area schools.

6 Big HealthTech Ideas That Will Change Medicine In 2012

TechCrunch has a list of what it thinks are the big tech innovations that will affect medicine.   They list the usual suspects (mobile technology, social networking) but there are a few surprises on the list.

Best software for putting lectures online

Over at Slashdot someone posted this question:
"I'm trying to help a school put their classes online in the way most minimally invasive to the teachers. A few environmental considerations: They don't always have live internet in the classroom, or I'd just run to Skype. I'm hoping to make it as much one-touch start/stop as possible to start recording, stop recording, and upload to a server. I'd like to believe others here have already done something similar, so if a package or process worked for you, that would be great to hear. Not sure what if it's all PowerPoint lectures, or if they actually use a whiteboard, and if so what the best camera would be to use (on a school budget!)."
Like most Slashdot posts it's necessary to weed through the comments to see what people have to say, but there's a few good tips there.