Are pharmacy labels your workflow crutch?

By Beth Richter, Pharmacist Consultant For many years, pharmacy workflow and medication dispensing have been driven by paper: paper in the form of a label.  Labels are used for everything and for good reason.  There are labels for the little baggie of medications so you know where it’s going, labels for pre-filled syringes to identify... Read more

Categories: Announcements | Blog | Efficiency | People | Safety
Tags: Automated Compounding System | Efficiency | Error Reduction | IV compounding | Pharmacy Automation | RIVA | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | Workflow

Measuring Patient Harm in Canadian Hospitals

By: Irene Wasilewski, Application Consultant Despite health professionals’ focus on safety, a small proportion of patients experience some type of unintended harm as a result of the care they receive. The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) in conjunction with the Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI) recently released a report using 2014/2015 data to measure... Read more

Categories: Announcements | Blog | Safety
Tags: Automated Compounding System | Efficiency | Error Reduction | IV compounding | Pharmacy Automation | RIVA | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | WorkflowAutomation | Awareness | Error Reduction | Safety

Why should pharmacies develop work standards for pharmacy technicians? What is a work standard?

By: Erica Ellis, Application Consultant As an Industrial Engineer, I have a unique perspective on how work is done in a pharmacy.  Whether it is inpatient, outpatient, long-term care, mail order, etc. each pharmacy has specific processes that must be completed by both pharmacists and technicians in order to deliver medications to its patients. Many... Read more

Categories: Announcements | Blog | Efficiency | People
Tags: Automated Compounding System | Efficiency | Error Reduction | IV compounding | Pharmacy Automation | RIVA | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | WorkflowAutomation | Awareness | Error Reduction | SafetyEfficiency | Error Reduction | Standardized Process

How to manage an interface development project

By: Thomas Brizzi, Project Manager If your pharmacy uses automation to fill prescriptions, you most likely have two separate software systems running in your pharmacy.  All pharmacies have their primary software system (commonly called a pharmacy information system, or host system) that stores prescription information, files insurance claims and retains historical data of the prescriptions... Read more

Categories: Announcements | Blog | Efficiency
Tags: Automated Compounding System | Efficiency | Error Reduction | IV compounding | Pharmacy Automation | RIVA | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | WorkflowAutomation | Awareness | Error Reduction | SafetyEfficiency | Error Reduction | Standardized ProcessEfficiency | Error Reduction | Implementation | Interface Development | Project Management

Seventy four percent (74%) of manually compounded sterile product errors are undetectable at final product verification and would reach the patient

By: Scarlett Eckert, Pharmacist Consultant MD Anderson Cancer Center’s implementation of an IV workflow software system that uses gravimetric and barcode verification intercepted over 1,000 errors during manual compounding1. Over a yearlong study conducted from November 2012 to November 2013, 15,843 doses were prepared using this system and 1,126 errors (7.1%) were detected during the... Read more

Categories: Announcements | Automation | Blog | ROI | Safety
Tags: Automated Compounding System | Efficiency | Error Reduction | IV compounding | Pharmacy Automation | RIVA | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | WorkflowAutomation | Awareness | Error Reduction | SafetyEfficiency | Error Reduction | Standardized ProcessEfficiency | Error Reduction | Implementation | Interface Development | Project ManagementAutomated Compounding System | Error Reduction | Manual Compounding | Safety | Verification

Put the Cheese in the Refrigerator

Or, reducing patient harm by eliminating the sources of error. By: Mitch Valdmanis, Senior System Designer I just read an article in the latest issue Healthcare Executive magazine by Dr. Erin S. DuPree from the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare. In the article, titled “High Reliability: The Path to Zero Harm“, Dr. DuPree discusses... Read more

Categories: Announcements | Blog | Efficiency | Safety
Tags: Automated Compounding System | Efficiency | Error Reduction | IV compounding | Pharmacy Automation | RIVA | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | WorkflowAutomation | Awareness | Error Reduction | SafetyEfficiency | Error Reduction | Standardized ProcessEfficiency | Error Reduction | Implementation | Interface Development | Project ManagementAutomated Compounding System | Error Reduction | Manual Compounding | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | Safety

Investigating Failures in Complex Systems

by Andrew Bugera, EIT Some recent highly-publicized failures of complex systems have reminded all of us that failures can still occur even when the design team puts forth their best effort to prevent them. For example, the SpaceX CRS-7 mission’s launch vehicle and payload were destroyed during launch near the end of June 2015 due... Read more

Categories: Announcements | Blog | Software
Tags: Automated Compounding System | Efficiency | Error Reduction | IV compounding | Pharmacy Automation | RIVA | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | WorkflowAutomation | Awareness | Error Reduction | SafetyEfficiency | Error Reduction | Standardized ProcessEfficiency | Error Reduction | Implementation | Interface Development | Project ManagementAutomated Compounding System | Error Reduction | Manual Compounding | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | SafetyError Reduction | RIVA | Software Design | Software Development

The Missing Scan, Barcoding at the Point of Dispense

By: Chris Miller, Product Manager We see it over and over on a regular basis, death caused by medication errors. A July 2014 press release from U.S. Senator Barbra Boxer estimates each year “between 210,000 and 440,000 Americans die as a result of preventable errors in hospitals”1, which leads to an estimated $19.5 Billion, yes... Read more

Categories: Automation | Blog | Safety
Tags: Automated Compounding System | Efficiency | Error Reduction | IV compounding | Pharmacy Automation | RIVA | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | WorkflowAutomation | Awareness | Error Reduction | SafetyEfficiency | Error Reduction | Standardized ProcessEfficiency | Error Reduction | Implementation | Interface Development | Project ManagementAutomated Compounding System | Error Reduction | Manual Compounding | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | SafetyError Reduction | RIVA | Software Design | Software DevelopmentError Reduction | Safety | Validation

Cognitive Ergonomics and Safety-Critical Systems

By Mitch Valdmanis, M.Eng. Recently an excerpt from the book “The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age” by Robert Wachter was published online: “The Overdose: How Medical Tech Gave a Patient a 39-Fold Overdose“. Though the headline is sensationalized – a more appropriate title would be “How Medical... Read more

Categories: Blog | Safety | Software
Tags: Automated Compounding System | Efficiency | Error Reduction | IV compounding | Pharmacy Automation | RIVA | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | WorkflowAutomation | Awareness | Error Reduction | SafetyEfficiency | Error Reduction | Standardized ProcessEfficiency | Error Reduction | Implementation | Interface Development | Project ManagementAutomated Compounding System | Error Reduction | Manual Compounding | Safety | VerificationEfficiency | Error Reduction | SafetyError Reduction | RIVA | Software Design | Software DevelopmentError Reduction | Safety | ValidationError Reduction | Pharmacy Automation | Safety | Software Development
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