RxTrace: Sophomore Effort

RxTrace just completed its second year of publication. In the last 12 months there have been a total of 28 new essays that attempted to shed light on issues and ideas that fall within the intersection of the pharmaceutical supply chain, track and trace technology, standards and regulator compliance.

Here is the complete list ordered by the total number of hits over the entire year.

  1. Yifan “Ivan” Shen (1962–2010) (August 17th, 2010)
  2. Attributes Of A Global Track & Trace Application (February 14th, 2011)
  3. Do We Even Need To Mandate Drug Pedigrees Anymore? (December 6th, 2010)
  4. Terminology: Track and Trace, and Pedigree (October 7th, 2010)
  5. The Future of Traceability Repositories and Inventory Management Systems (November 8th, 2010)
  6. Estimated Rise In Serialized Drugs In The U.S. Supply Chain (August 3rd, 2010)
  7. Before You Participate in The GS1 US 2015 Readiness Program, Read This (October 4th, 2010)
  8. Who Will Decide Which Pedigree Model You Will Invest In? (November 15th, 2010)
  9. The Viability of Global Track & Trace Models (May 2nd, 2011)
  10. Pharma Serialization ROI (January 3rd, 2011)
  11. A Semi-Centralized, Semi-Distributed Pedigree System Idea (September 27th, 2010)
  12. Certifications In A California-Compliant Drug Pedigree (October 26th, 2010)
  13. U.S. Pharma Supply Chain Complexity (May 23rd, 2011)
  14. Masterpiece: GS1 Tag Data Standard 1.5 (August 30th, 2010)
  15. GS1 Identifiers and EPC’s in EDI Messages: Important New HDMA Guidance (January 31st, 2011)
  16. Pedigree Will Change FOB Terms (October 19th, 2010)
  17. Lessons from “Drug Theft Goes Big” (April 19th, 2011)
  18. Stop Claiming that 10% of Drugs Worldwide are Counterfeit (September 20th, 2010)
  19. Reliance on Trust in the U.S. Pharma Supply Chain (April 26th, 2011)
  20. Illegitimate Drugs In The U.S. Supply Chain: Needle In A Haystack (June 6th, 2011)
  21. Electronic Message Security and More on Certifications (January 24th, 2011)
  22. Standards and Guidance For U.S. Pharma Supply Chain Technology (November 22nd, 2010)
  23. Partnership For Safe Medicines Interchange 2010 (October 12th, 2010)
  24. Plateaus of Pharma Supply Chain Security (May 31st, 2011)
  25. Writing Is Thinking. For Example, Ken Traub (November 29th, 2010)
  26. SNI’s Are Not Enough In a Plateau-Based Supply Chain Security Approach (June 13th, 2011)
  27. RxTrace, One Year Retrospective (July 6th, 2010)
  28. Happy Holidays 2010 (December 17th, 2010)

Keep in mind that the earlier an essay was published in the last year the more time it had to accumulate hits.  That explains why my most recent essay is third from the bottom (#26).  It’s only been out there for a few weeks.

The essay with the greatest hits was the saddest essay–the one announcing the death of my friend and fellow serialization expert Ivan Shen.  I am very gratified that people who knew him used the essay as a place to leave memories of Ivan.  Those comments are a fitting memorial for him.

There are two essays in the list that are no longer publicly available, numbers 8 and 22.  These essays contained such solid logic that they struck a chord with people and apparently a few of them started asking questions of people who didn’t want to be asked.  Notice how high these essays are in the hit list.  Now consider that they were only available on the website for about a month before I pulled them from public view.  If they had been available for a full 12 months they would have easily been the two top essays.  In their short time they generated a lot of positive comments and discussion–an indication of their importance and something that all bloggers live and write for.

MY FAVORITE ESSAYS

Here are my favorite essays from the second year of RxTrace:

  1. Who Will Decide Which Pedigree Model You Will Invest In? (November 15th, 2010)
  2. Lessons from “Drug Theft Goes Big” (April 19th, 2011)
  3. Reliance on Trust in the U.S. Pharma Supply Chain (April 26th, 2011)
  4. U.S. Pharma Supply Chain Complexity (May 23rd, 2011)
  5. Plateaus of Pharma Supply Chain Security (May 31st, 2011)
  6. Standards and Guidance For U.S. Pharma Supply Chain Technology (November 22nd, 2010)
  7. Do We Even Need To Mandate Drug Pedigrees Anymore? (December 6th, 2010)
  8. Illegitimate Drugs In The U.S. Supply Chain: Needle In A Haystack (June 6th, 2011)
  9. Writing Is Thinking. For Example, Ken Traub (November 29th, 2010)

If you only have time to read a few RxTrace essays, don’t miss these.  Favorite Essays #2 and #3 are a series that I wrote based on the great investigative journalism of Katherine Eban in her article “Drug Theft Goes Big” in Fortune Magazine online.  Favorite essay #4 is my attempt to explain what makes the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain so complex when considering pedigree and track and trace models.  Favorite Essay #5 contains my thoughts on how a workable pedigree or track and trace approach might be structured and timed in recognition of the complexity I discussed in Favorite Essay #4.

Many of the essays from the entire list are intended to shed light on issues that designers of pedigree and track and trace models should think about before they draw up standards and regulations that are based on high-level assumptions about the supply chain.  Favorite Essays #7 and #8 represent my attempt to find the reality of the problems that current standards and regulation are aimed at, and to me it appears that the reality may be different than the aim.

As a writer I just had to add Favorite Essay #9 to the list because it expresses the importance of writing to thinking, something I observe to be linked so well as an example in track & trace technology expert Ken Traub.

RxTRACE:  A LOOK AHEAD

After two years-worth of essays I’m still not done.  I maintain a list of ideas for essays and some days I’ve been known to add as many as 7 different ideas to it.  The problem is not a lack of ideas, it is lack of time.  Exploring potential ideas takes time.  Thinking takes time.  Writing takes time.  My goal continues to be to keep a pace of 1 to 3 solid essays per month.  If I end up at the low end of that scale for a while it just means I’ve gotten busy at home and/or at work.  You should know that I’m still here, I’m still thinking and I’ll be writing again soon.  Stay with me, and please send me your comments either publicly, anonymously or privately.  The dialog that an essay generates is more important than the original essay itself.

Dirk.

One thought on “RxTrace: Sophomore Effort”

  1. Dirk – Thanks for 2 years – time flies!

    I have a feeling that the next year or so might be pretty interesting in this space as well.

    Having run a blog before, I can empathize how much (spare) time this costs you. Thanks for your efforts.

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