Maury Regional Medical Center (MRMC), located in Columbia, TN operates three pharmacies, an outpatient oncology clinic pharmacy, and serves 275 beds throughout middle Tennessee state. In their search for a new pharmacy solution for their limited space, they identified a key requirement—a system that would allow them to barcode products for bedside medication verification.
The Goals Were Clear
MRMC knew exactly where they wanted to see improvements.
- Improve medication filling accuracy from the pharmacy to the ADMs and dispensing accuracy to the patient.
- Achieve this goal within the pharmacy’s existing space and increase staff efficiency and productivity.
- Define a standardized approach for quarterly inventory counts in an efficient and accurate manner.
Automation To Keep It Moving
After a thorough review, Beacon® and Automatic Tablet Packaging (ATP®) systems emerged as the clear choice. Two important aspects factored in the selection of the Beacon system: that multiple users could simultaneously pick orders and stock medication with pick-to-light technology and the lack of mechanical parts that could potentially cause system downtime.
Getting the Right Meds to the Right Beds
Further driven by the goal to improve accuracy prior to bedside administration, the selection committee felt ATP’s unit dose pouch labeling coupled with Beacon’s barcode scanning best supported this goal. They also saw the ability to track utilization for improved inventory control as an added bonus.
Unexpected Benefits
Maury Regional achieved its original objective despite an aggressive time frame. The ATP packager aided the “cart-fill” operations, about 25% of their daily meds. Gaining increased efficiencies over time, MRMC realized additional benefits, insights they gained from reporting and the perpetual inventory system.
Benefits of the Beacon/ATP systems include:
- Space savings
- Ordering assistance
- Creation of drug families connecting multiple NDCs to one unique identifier
- System redundancy for inventory information
Blueprint for Inventory Management
From an efficiency perspective, MRMC’s workflow has been greatly enhanced. Dispensing requires fewer physical steps to complete, and several users can perform the same tasks simultaneously. Layout efficiencies reduce the amount of time required to conduct a physical inventory. A new quarantine process allows new meds, not in the system, to be registered in the system prior to placement in inventory. Overall, the Beacon and ATP systems have created a more efficient inventory management system for Maury Regional.
By the Numbers
Immediate decrease in inventory cost
Decrease in carrying inventory over 4 years*
*despite an average annual medication cost increase of 3-8% per year
Discover the solutions empowering Maury Regional and learn how Parata can help your pharmacy.
