Optimizing medication workflow, accuracy, and management RxWorks Suite
Optimizing medication workflow, accuracy, and management Improving patient safety is a critical initiative in healthcare. Medication errors cause thousands of deaths each year in the United States, and contribute to higher patient mortality, longer hospital stays, and rising costs. Optimizing the accuracy and consistency of medication delivery at the bedside is one of the key initiatives aimed at solving this problem. At the same time, healthcare costs are increasing at twice the rate of inflation. Among the fastest rising are those related to supply and service costs, which currently consume about 40% of the total budget in a health system. As healthcare managers assess the effectiveness of their supply chain models, they are realizing that traditional business practices are falling short. AmerisourceBergen can help you address both of these critical issues in medication management patient safety and cost control with solutions that help you: Identify ways to improve the flow of medications across your institution so you can increase efficiency, reduce errors and improve patient care. Align your formulary and pharmaceutical policies with industry best practices so you can standardize on products and processes that result in safer and more cost-effective patient outcomes. Improve inventory control and management to minimize the costs involved in material and medication purchasing, receipt, delivery, dispensing and usage in order to avoid loss.
Challenge: Optimizing medication delivery Medication Process Optimization and Automation Any problem with how medications flow through your hospital can be a potential source of medication errors. AmerisourceBergen consultants will assess your current clinical and medication management operations, identify gaps, and, if necessary, recommend workflow strategies to reduce manual processes, workarounds, and process variations that lead to medication administration errors. This workflow will lay the necessary groundwork for your organization to implement a barcode-enabled medication administration system. Once your medication process has been optimized, we ll apply appropriate solutions from the RxWorks Suite of inventory and automation systems to create a virtually unbreakable medication delivery chain in your enterprise. Among the inventory and automation systems available to you include: Inventory management software. You can automatically check product barcoding at delivery to the pharmacy to ensure that the correct medications are received and stored in the right place. The most extensive formulary of barcodeenabled unit dose medications in the industry. When you take advantage of the RxWorks Suite procurement services, we can provide 100% of the oral solid medications in your formulary in unit-dose, barcoded form. Barcoding systems. Our Barcoding Station allows barcodes to be added to products that are either not barcoded by the manufacturer or inadequately coded and unreadable by your BCMA scanner. This system ensures that there are no gaps in the safety of your care delivery chain. Workflow management software. Our barcode scanning and on-screen image verification features help you ensure all medications are accurately picked and dispensed. Automated dispensing machines. Improve the accuracy of drug dispensing in decentralized locations including the ER, OR, critical care and other patient-care areas with cabinets linked to your pharmacy information system.
Challenge: Adopting barcoding strategies with limited staff resources Time-saving Barcode Medication Administration (BCMA) enablement solutions BCMA strategies can help you improve patient safety and create an advanced care environment that helps you recruit and retain quality personnel. But these benefits can t be realized if implementation places a significant burden on your clinical and pharmacy staff. The RxWorks Suite solution helps facilitate your organization s ability to adopt a BCMA solution. One way is by replacing time-consuming manual tasks with automated processes to help reduce errors and inefficiencies into the order fulfillment process. The automated dispensing, storage, workflow, and packaging systems enable staff to process orders so they can spend more time on patient care activities. In addition, AmerisourceBergen can advise you on more comprehensive strategies to address quality control and staffing issues, such as centralized supply chain management to minimize staffing requirements, variations and costs enterprise-wide. Challenge: Improving inventory control and management Automated tracking, control and optimization of pharmacy inventory and supplies Pharmaceutical products, supplies, and purchased services are the second highest cost for a healthcare institution, next to personnel. Institutions that lack sufficient visibility into their pharmaceutical inventory levels pay the price in many ways. Many over-order to avoid getting caught short, resulting in extra capital tied up in inventory and losses due to obsolete products. When stock-outs do occur, pharmacy must pay a premium to get the product on short notice. Un-noticed inventory shrinkage is another costly problem when product usage is not carefully monitored. RxWorks Suite provides inventory management tools that give you comprehensive and detailed visibility into the value of your inventory on-hand, automated ordering mechanisms that flow products in a timely manner, and security features help control usage and avoid loss. These tools enable you to: Manage and dynamically set min/max levels based on usage over time with auto-replenishment of stock so you avoid the costs associated with under- or overordering. Track dollars associated with inventory items and identify leaks and potential diversions early, before losses mount. Control access to inventory with user-based accountability that limits access and provides continuous product tracking. Improve inventory control, security, compliance and cost capture with automated dispensing machines and supply cabinets installed in decentralized locations. Track pharmaceutical and other medical supply inventory in any location including satellite pharmacies, clinics, store rooms, and ancillary hospitals.
Challenge: Eliminating process variations that drive up costs Purchasing, receiving, dispensing and tracking automation Controlling pharmaceutical inventory, supplies, and purchased services with greater precision is critical to reducing costs. But for the solution to be effective, it has to go beyond the manual processes that constitute pharmacy inventory management in many institutions, such as affixing stickers to clipboards for reordering, locking down processes to stop diversion, and instituting end-of-month inventory cutbacks to stay within budget. With RxWorks Suite, you can eliminate the manual activities associated with inventory management and use automation to control costs by: Implementing software that ensures adherence to contract compliance, maintains appropriate stock levels, and limits access by enforcing an agreed upon formulary for the pharmacy as well as decentralized locations such as clinics. Receiving automation that helps eliminate errors and costs introduced into the system by manual receiving and stocking processes. Dispensing automation that standardizes the flow of supplies and medications through the system in order to avoid variations and work-arounds. Financial tracking software that captures key data as products flow through the system and tracks inconsistencies between units, departments, and multiple locations.
TM RxWorks Suite keeps all the medication management points connected. SupplyWorks Finance FastFind Universal Carousel FastPak EXP High Speed Packager Materials Management System RxWorks Suite ClinicWorks ClinicWorks Satellite Pharmacy Order Entry ClinicWorks Barcoding Station Pharmacy Check Station PHARMACY Automated technologies manage and track inventory, and safely package and dispense medications where and when they re needed. SupplyWorks MedSelect Automated Dispensing Machine Procurement AmerisourceBergen DISTRIBUTION CENTER RxWorks Suite is the AmerisourceBergen technology infrastructure designed to optimize your medication management processes from delivery to bedside with state-of-the-art solutions for: Inventory management Automated medication dispensing Formulary consolidation and standardization Compliance packaging and labeling Streamlined workflow NURSING STATION Centralized medication dispensing for increased patient safety, faster more accurate dispensing, tightly managed inventory and better analysis of trends.
Challenge: Improving enterprise access to supply chain management data Integrated management supply chain layer Many institutions have invested in solutions for supply chain management and the resulting islands of data have proven difficult to access and integrate. When systems don t communicate with each other, you lose the ability to track supplies and medications as they flow through the enterprise. As a result, you can t achieve the full efficiency potential of these systems or get full value from your investment. RxWorks Suite enables you to make better use of legacy supply chain management systems and extend their useful life. Our integrated management supply chain layer communicates with your existing pharmacy information systems, hospital information systems (HIS), financial and materials management systems, admission discharge transfer (ADT) system all the way down to unit based cabinets on the nursing floors. By providing a complete view of all relevant data points along your supply chain, RxWorks Suite: Improves your ability to track and financially account for all materials and medications in your supply chain. Facilitates management reporting so you can identify spending patterns, usage trends, and outliers; pinpoint areas that need improvement and develop an action plan to implement change effectively. Improves financial reporting accuracy so you can have more confidence in financial statements and comply with financial requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley.
Challenge: Controlling purchasing and procurement behavior Compliance tools Health systems go to considerable effort to develop optimal medication formularies and negotiate advantageous contracts with suppliers. But, after the ink is dry, many fail to realize the desired savings due to lack of compliance by their staff. RxWorks Suite automation tools give you greater power to enforce buying guidelines and control purchasing behaviors so you can attain your cost control objectives and preserve crucial capital resources by providing: Formulary/contract purchasing tools that enable you to keep purchasers within the approved formulary and contracts. As a result, you can take advantage of volume discounts and rebates, while preventing non-compliance and use of alternative suppliers. Multi-vendor standardized purchasing platform which lets you employ one system to manage purchasing from all vendors. You get a consolidated view into purchasing data and comprehensive reports to better manage costs. Automated ordering tools that establish pre-set rules and par levels for auto replenishment to ensure a consistent flow of supplies, avoid rush charges and emergency orders, and optimize inventory timing for supply deliveries. 340B procurement tools that help you take full advantage of the 340B drug pricing program by capturing all applicable medications and claiming all eligible rebates and discounts which may help you recover a significant percentage of your drug costs for indigent care. Audit compliance tools that allow you to define users and limit access to meet GAAP and Sarbanes-Oxley requirements.
The best medicine for healthcare At AmerisourceBergen, medication management is our business and our passion. We optimize the entire medication process from order to bedside and into the community so that your patients and your organization realize the greatest benefit. We combine the infrastructure and procurement expertise of a global leader in pharmaceutical distribution with the consultative savvy and best practices that have helped thousands of hospitals reduce errors, increase efficiency, and save millions of dollars each year. To learn more about our solutions for optimizing medication workflow, accuracy, and management, please contact your AmerisourceBergen representative at 877-892-1254 or email solutions@amerisourcebergen.com. AmerisourceBergen. The best medicine for healthcare.