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Omnicell to launch innovative new solution at this year’s Clinical Pharmacy Congress

Omnicell, a leading provider of medication management solutions and adherence tools for health systems and pharmacies, will unveil its pioneering new MedX solution at the Clinical Pharmacy Congress (23rd-24th September 2021) to be held at ExCeL London.

MedX, the latest addition to Omnicell’s market leading portfolio, is a software solution that manages medication and controlled drug stock, providing one clear view of pharmacy inventory in real time across a hospital, trust or Integrated Care System (ICS). The easy to use, web-based solution for medication inventory management and reporting provides real time dashboards direct to a mobile phone so it can be viewed anytime, anywhere by clinicians. The solution supports improved patient safety in the event of a product recall with individual batch tracking and frees up clinicians’ time from searching overburdened shelves and managing stock levels, allowing them to focus on face-to-face patient care. Furthermore, it allows hospitals to manage and glean data for those items that cannot be stored in automated dispensing cabinets.

The MedX system has been designed to achieve Scan4Safety compliance and GS1 standards. An electronic CD register, OmniCD sits within the reporting structure of MedX which will provide users with the reporting tools necessary for storage and monitoring of controlled drugs independently or together with Omnicell’s point of care solutions. The OmniCD report captures the movement of controlled drugs from the moment they are added as a stock item to when they are administered.

Furthermore, MedX can manage inventory stored in both open and closed areas, improving audit tracking across the whole hospital. It collates data from Omnicell’s Robotic Dispensing System, automated dispensing cabinets and non-automated areas, displaying the data on a live dashboard.

The system provides a multitude of benefits for staff at all stages of the medication management process, allowing them to spend more time on direct patient care, including:

  • Elimination of nursing time spent on managing and ordering stock
  • Better visibility of when and where funds are being spent
  • Ability to track and cost everything at a patient, procedure and consultant level
  • Reduction of unforeseen stockouts of medication, helping to ensure medication is available when and where it is needed

Edward Platt, Automation Director for Omnicell UK&I , comments: “We are delighted to be attending the Clinical Pharmacy Congress in person this year and look forward to reconnecting with the clinical pharmacy professional community. In addition, we are excited to be using this event to launch the innovative MedX solution to the UK healthcare market. The technology can really bring valuable insights to healthcare partners’ clinical workflows and medication management processes. In turn, this improves quality, reduces costs and increases staff efficiency, all of which creates more time for face-to-face patient care. Omnicell is proud to be delivering the future of medication management at such a prestigious and noteworthy event.”

Visit them at Stand F10 at the Clinical Pharmacy Congress 2021 to see the new MedX system in action OR for a demonstration

New integration between care home systems will drive safety within the care and medication administration process

Care home residents regularly don’t receive the correct support with medicines in line with what is documented in their care plan according to the latest CQC ‘Medicines in Health and Adult Social Care report’1.  Omnicell UK, the market leader in medication and supplies automation, and Nourish Care, a leading electronic care planning provider, have come together to provide a new integration that gives care staff greater visibility of a patient’s medication regime as part of their overall care plan.

Managing and monitoring resident’s medication regimes effectively can significantly impact the delivery and quality of care. Historically care planning and medication administration systems have been managed completely separately. This can potentially contribute to failings in support of residents’ care. The new integration means that Omnicell eMAR can now share data related to medication with the Nourish Care system, giving greater insight and driving best practice into the safety and individual care of each resident in the home. This provides care givers with the following:

  • Sight of the latest prescribed medications, supporting carers in assessments and reviews without having to switch between two separate technology systems
  • Information on when new medication has been prescribed to residents, so it is possible to monitor or adjust care plans accordingly
  • A summary of the medication, dose and time administered to better understand the medical history and individual pathway of a resident
  • Ability to correlate the data for medication administered with other information such as falls, accidents and additional incidents

Omnicell eMAR automates the entire medication management and administration process ensuring each resident receives the correct medicine dose at the correct time. The system gathers information, provides prompts and accurate instructions for staff and managers in real time at the touch of a button.  Each individual medication is identified through a barcode applied in pharmacy, which can then be tracked at all stages from check in at the care home through to administration to a resident.  It provides an invaluable medicines history for each patient and includes a simple alert and verification system to minimise the risk of medication errors in the home.

Residents in care homes take an average of 7.2 medicines per day. With each additional medicine comes an increased risk of errors in prescription, monitoring, dispensing or administration, adverse drug reactions, impaired medicines adherence which can lead to compromised quality of life for patients. CQC’s annual state of care report found that safety was the biggest concern with one of the main contributing factors being poor medicines management.

Nourish’s customisable and easy-to-use software supports recording at the point of care, saving time and allowing for more accurate notes. Access to information ensures that care teams are kept up-to-date and can make informed decisions for better care. With records that are secure, accurate and compliant, evidencing care becomes more manageable and care management more organised. Now with the latest integration with Omnicell, Nourish empowers care teams further with contextual medication history and usage helping to ensure better care decisions are made both at moments of care and when planning care needs.

Cyrus Hodivala, Medicines Adherence Sales Director at Omnicell UK & Ireland, comments; “Whilst the care sector has undoubtedly made great strides to ensure the safer use of medicines across its services, there are still areas for improvement. A disconnect between care planning and medication management could be contributing to the problem of poor support of residents with their medication regimes highlighted in the CQC ‘Medicines in Health and Adult Social Care report’.  As leaders in innovation within the sector we have developed an answer to this problem. The newly enhanced eMAR system for care homes links to and works in conjunction with individual care plans providing the care giver with crucial data and insight. We’re anticipating this will help to drive much needed efficiencies and drive patient safety within the care sector and hope that it eventually becomes the gold standard when managing medication administration within care planning.”

Nuno Almeida founder of Nourish Care says, “Our mission is to support care teams to provide high quality care and we have worked on a number of integrations and projects to deliver this. This latest collaboration with Omnicell is entirely consistent with our mission and provides care teams the choice of having an eMAR system with evidence of quality. We are also looking forward to working with the combination of the care planning and medicines management data as part of our Nourish Analytics.”

How automating the medication management process can support hospitals during the COVID-19 second wave

Sara Dalmasso is General Manager and Vice President at Omnicell International. Here she reflects how automating the medication management process can support hospitals during the COVID-19 second wave.

We are seeing a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases with rapidly rising hospital admissions across the whole of Europe. Governments are taking drastic action to try and prevent the spread of the virus with many countries recently implementing new lockdown measures to protect patients and healthcare systems, many of which are already over stretched. This latest increase in admissions is placing an additional burden on hospitals as they enter a traditionally busy winter period.

As cases surge, its crucial healthcare suppliers do all we can to support front line staff and patients in this latest battle against the virus. Now more than ever people need to come together and work in partnership to protect our valued healthcare services.

One of the ways we know we can support at Omnicell is to provide hospitals with real time visibility of stock levels across the hospital so staff can quickly establish what medication needs to be ordered at any time. Using automated medication management solutions negates the need for manual stock checks by pharmacy or nursing staff which means their time can be better spent on face to face clinical care.

Following the first wave of COVID-19 we know from our hospital customer feedback how the virus brought about:

  • An increased critical need for specific medications to be readily available
  • A change in the demand for the range and type of medications driven by COVID-19
  • Risks from medication shortages due to increased demand
  • An increased need for security and accountability around all highly demanded medications
  • The need to prevent cross contamination during the medication management process
  • A required adjustment to processes to reduce staff exposure and risk as well as the overuse of PPE.

Many hospitals took advantage of our Rapid Response initiative which saw Omnicell remove the barriers to ordering, shipping and installation of its XT Automated Dispensing Solutions, allowing hospitals to ‘scale-up’ additional medication management needs as soon as required. As hospitals mobilized to meet the needs of this new emergency, as their healthcare technology and service partner we did the same with pre-configured cabinets available on site in as little as 14 days with the option to remote install.

It is important that we share best practice approaches during these challenging times so healthcare settings can implement new ways of working which will support both staff and the patients they are caring for in this difficult climate. Here are five ways automating the medication management process can help hospitals during the Covid-19 second wave.

Automated inventory management process

Track real time stock levels of critical medications across the whole hospital including identification and focused tracking of highly needed COVID-19 specific medications across all high-risk areas. By automating your process, you can identify at an early stage increases in key COVID-19 medicines and this can be highlighted to pharmacy to ensure they have ample time to react before the demand hits them. In addition, this approach automatically identifies items that need to be re-ordered without staff exposure to high risk areas. The data intelligence from the Omnicell COVID-19 forecast report allows hospitals to predict demand and prevent unnecessary stock-outs through reorder and critical low alerts based on real time inventory.

Improved workflows

Electronic messaging around inventory and patient transactions for medication usage allows for remote monitoring and decreases the need for access to “hot areas” in terms of a physical presence. This reduces the risk of staff exposure and the requirement to provide valuable stocks of PPE to support functions. Equally Omnicell’s controlled management process removes the need for paper-based recording systems, reducing the risk of cross-contamination.

Ability to respond rapidly for new COVID-19 management wards

The automation means you can define in advance required standard stock levels for COVID-19 specific treatment areas. You can even have established automated dispensing cabinets with defined COVID-19 specific stock set up and quarantined ready to rapidly roll into new areas as and when needed. Such solutions provide a secure and accountable medication management system in high demand areas. There is the option to provide a mix of pharmacy and supply items in one single system allowing for a single source for all inventory which can be ready to be moved to overflow areas as required.

Improved Infection Control

Required medication kept in a closed cabinet environment reduces exposure to the virus of all stocked items. Locking lid bins reduce the risk of exposure further as they only allow access to the medication required. The easy one touch log-in is available through use of Bio-ID so no need to hand keys between staff. There is also the option to use a password as alternative to Bio-ID. Detailed cleaning and disinfection details are available for Omnicell cabinets.

Restocking

You can use the electronic reorder function to identify restock needs even in high demand areas. There is the potential to adjust stock levels in high risk areas so exposure through restocking frequency can be reduced. As data can be seen remotely there is a reduced need for pharmacy staff to be in high risk COVID-19 areas specifically for stock management and monitoring purposes.

Freeing staff time for clinical care

By automating your medication management process, you free up nursing time for clinical care which is critically important during this pandemic. Stock counts can be done remotely by pharmacy staff as opposed to nurses on the front line. Equally better visibility and management of stock means having the right medicine in the right location at the right time, so nurses spend less time looking for medication or drug cupboard keys and more time caring for patients.

The COVID-19 virus has demonstrated how crucial it is for industry experts to work hand in hand with healthcare organizations to automate administrative process and improve efficiencies. This will ensure that front line staff are spending their time on clinical duties and patient care rather than logistical process. When we unite and work together in this way, we can transform the way we deliver healthcare to patients, even in the most difficult circumstances.

For more information visit www.omnicell.co.uk www.omnicell.de www.omnicell.fr

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