Digital Pharmacist Digest - 💊 Indication first prescribing, user interaction features applying AI, and more

Hiya 👋

We’re back with another edition of the digital pharmacist digest!

What is it about ChatGPT that has made it explode into the mainstream? Sure, there is the amazing usefulness of AI and large language models. But, it's the intersection with high usability that has driven success. It’s extremely easy to use. For more in depth insight, Lex Fridman’s podcast with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, is well worth a listen.

Thanks for reading,
Kevin

📖What I'm reading

🩺💻 Health informatics and 💊Patient Safety - Prescribing medications with indications: time to flip the script

"Rather than mandating an extra task, even one as beneficial as documenting the indication appears to be, we believe we should turn the prescribing process on its head, by reversing the conventional order of prescribing a drug—and starting with (and thereby capturing) rather than ending with, adding the drug indication. For example, a prescriber would first enter ‘gout’ into the CPOE system, and because the EMR knows the patient’s age, weight, allergies, renal function, current and prior drugs (including those that have been tried and failed) and insurance status (including which drugs are on vs off formulary), the CPOE system could then populate the order with the suggested evidence-based drug(s) of choice (with the correct dosage/regimen) for that specific patient."
The editorial goes even further detailing the questions that need to be answered implementing indication-first prescribing. "Why should ‘big brother’ tell me what to prescribe and take away my autonomy to prescribe the drug(s) I have always used or that I know would be best for this patient? Who decides on these ‘drugs of choice’, and how can I trust the CPOE-recommended choice is accurate, up to date and unbiased? How is this list developed and continuously updated and integrated into my CPOE system?"

🩺💻 Health informatics and 🤖 Artificial Intelligence - Moving beyond algorithmic accuracy to improving user interaction with clinical AI

A paper on user interaction factors that may hinder the translation of clinical AI, no matter how accurate it is. "We argue that user interaction is a critical missing links between computational performance and clinical outcomes...While a range of interaction factors could be considered, the following three seem particularly important because of their potential to improve the adoption and deployment of clinical AI and, consequently, improve clinical care... 1. Minimal-demand interaction, 2. Innovative interaction paradigms and 3. Intelligent interaction."

👨‍💻 Product management - Product Core Competencies

A reminder of the product management framework I use to guide solution design and product decisions.
"when solving problems for our customers or our business, we need to come up with solutions that our customers love, yet work for our business.

In order to discover an effective solution, the team is responsible for addressing four different types of risks:

• Value Risk: will the customer buy our solution, or choose to use it?

• Viability Risk: will this solution work for our business? Is it something we can effectively and legally get to market, sell, service, fund, and monetize?

• Usability Risk: can the user easily learn, use and perceive the value of the solution?

• Feasibility Risk: do we know how to build and scale this solution, with the staff, time, technology, and data we have?"

💭 Work life and Productivity - Apple’s Secret ‘XDG’ Team Is Working on More Than Just a Glucose Monitor

Interesting insight into how the exploratory design group in Apple is set up.

"While the team operates as a startup, it is still compartmentalized like any other Apple division: People working on one project within XDG aren’t allowed to communicate about their work with other members of XDG that are assigned to different projects.

But the team’s members are organized by skill sets rather than individual projects. That means that one engineer could be working on several initiatives that fit their skills, rather than on one specific product."