Members of the pharmacy and nursing departments are working hard to get the new Pyxis MedStation System ready for delivery to the nursing stations. The new system, which is already being used by anesthesia and the recovery room, will soon be available hospital-wide. Gerry Schultheis, DON, said the system will be installed one unit at a time (starting on 4 West) and that the total installation should take about two weeks. Melissa Britton, RN, Shane Trent, Pharmacist and Amanda McCauley, Pharmacy Technician is the core team members for this project. Melissa and representatives from the Pyxis Corporation will be assisting with staff training and orientation.
The issue of medication errors has been under the microscope of the media and public interest groups more and more frequently. It is reported to be a serious problem in the U. S. healthcare system and all of us, as both providers and consumers, should be concerned.
LMH is addressing these issues and taking steps to eliminate medication errors at our facility. One step we have taken is to purchase the Pyxis MedStation System. The system has several distribution, management and control features that make it highly attractive to both larger urban medical centers and smaller community hospitals.
Rick Ealy, director of the pharmacy, said the goal is to provide each floor with close to 95% of the medications they need on a daily basis. Each MedStation is capable of storing 150 or more different drugs which are selected based on the unit’s past ordering patterns. When a patient requires a drug that is not stored in the MedStation, the pharmacy will decide whether to temporarily add the drug to that MedStation or hand deliver. Ealy said that the biggest change would be in the turn around time. Once a pharmacist profiles the drugs, they are immediately available to the nurse. Before MedStation was available it might take several minutes to a couple of hours for the drugs to be profiled and delivered during peak periods. Because a pharmacist enters the drug profile into the system for each patient, the system will not dispense a dose of medication not listed in the patient’s profile.
The pharmacy runs daily reports that track medications distributed by the MedStation. The reports identify the location of MedStations that need to be re-stocked. The MedStation also automatically notifies the pharmacy once the last dose of any drug is distributed.
The system’s advanced security also eliminates the need for narcotic counts and locked cabinets and greatly reduces the risk of narcotic diversion. In addition, the system interfaces with the Meditech system, allowing automated billing and charting which increases productivity and accountability and reduction in lost charges.
Ealy states that employees may find the system time consuming initially, but believes that it will save time once employees become familiar with its operation.
