Blogs
October 24, 2024 / November 7, 2024 by Intelliguard
National Pharmacy Week 2024 provides an annual opportunity to recognize the powerful impact pharmacists and staff make on their patients. From receiving and restocking to dispensing and tracking, pharmacists are involved in the clinical, compliance, and supply chain workflows that ensure care teams have the right medication in the right place at the right time to protect patient safety.
We at Intelliguard believe that this week also provides the opportunity to highlight the operational challenges pharmacies face year-round.
Improving pharmacy operations is just one way the Mira Prep Station can help you take control of your hospital pharmacy. Learn More
Unfortunately, many pharmacy workflows rely on manual scanning and input processes. This approach to pharmacy inventory management can lead to unnecessary increases in labor hours and related costs. Beyond that, arduous pharmacy workflows can lead to inefficiencies that can frustrate and create stress for staff. Coupled with budget constraints, staff shortages, and increased fatigue, all these factors impact pharmacy inventory management and may lead to system-wide challenges, such as stockouts or medication expiration, that can endanger patients.
Many health systems lack end-to-end visibility and real-time tracking of inventory. We understand these challenges, and we know that effective medication management solutions promote both pharmacy efficiency and patient safety.
Pharmacists need systemwide solutions and interoperability to more easily reduce restocking time, identify expired medications, reduce drug shortages, and improve drug recall management. That’s why we believe so fully in the value of innovation and improvement in hospital supply chain management.
For example, RFID medication management solutions, powered by hardware, intuitive software, and an advanced data platform, can better enable pharmacy staff to manage medications — within their pharmacies and across their health systems.
RFID is wireless technology capable of automatic and precise identification via unique identifiers in microelectronic tags attached to medications and supplies. Solutions like RFID inventory management technologies can reduce hands-on time by eliminating the need for manual scanning. Bulk encoding also increases visibility and provides unprecedented tracking and traceability.
An automated RFID pharmacy inventory management system can help pharmacies leverage real-time tracking and tracing to:
With Mira Prep, for example, medications can be tracked with greater than 99% accuracy without manual scanning and save nearly $100K per pharmacist per year.1
Aside from improving pharmacy ROI, RFID inventory management solutions also lend to improved workforce wellbeing, helping pharmacists simplify systems, optimize their time, and practice at the top of their licenses.
Pharmacy staff often work long hours in a high-stress environment. Lack of access to the right medications at the right time and a lack of visibility across system touchpoints can be a major source of stress, leading to burnout and turnover.
Taking staff mental health and workload seriously is an essential element to success. Medication management solutionsthat can help improve workflows and protect patients are investments that provide two-fold returns.
We at Intelliguard recognize a shared priority with hospital pharmacies for patient safety. We know that each improvement to inventory management, pharmacy workflow, and system-wide medication visibility is a significant contribution to industry safeguards and improved patient outcomes.
RFID inventory management is among the advances that enable improved accuracy in hospital supply chain management and pharmacy inventory management.
For example, with the Intelliguard Mira solution, health system pharmacies realized:
Improved accuracy, in turn, leads to a future where hospitals can better anticipate and manage supply, fortify hospital supply chain management, improve access to medications, and protect patients.
This week, especially, it is critical that we look closely at pharmacy operations and explore medication management solutions to safeguard workflows and processes— for the benefit of pharmacists and patients alike.
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