RFID-Enabled Dispensing and Intelligent Inventory Management Software Aim to Unlock Greater Inventory Accuracy and Streamline Medication Management in Operating Rooms and Outpatient Clinics
Omnicell, Inc., a leader in transforming the pharmacy and nursing care delivery model, today announced new products designed to streamline workflows and enhance inventory visibility and management in perioperative and clinic settings. These products, which leverage RFID tracking and intelligent software workflows, expand Omnicell’s connected platform that is intended to automate medication management processes and deliver intelligent insights to drive clinical and operational outcomes across all settings of care.
“As healthcare facilities face ongoing staffing shortages and enterprise expansion, we believe resulting disconnected systems and processes introduce opportunities for error and risk,” said Nish Parekh, senior vice president and chief product officer at Omnicell. “Omnicell is focused on delivering scalable solutions that are designed to grow visibility, enhance intelligence, and streamline workflows, ultimately helping to close gaps in medication management across the care continuum.”
MedTrack RFID Line
We believe the path to the industry-defined vision of the Autonomous Pharmacy demands full visibility to medication use throughout the health system. RFID tracking of medications is expected to provide enhanced visibility of tagged medications. When incorporated into existing pharmacy automation, it should drive more efficient workflows, and is anticipated to help reduce medication errors, stockouts, waste, and cost.
Omnicell has announced the launch of a new line of RFID products, MedTrack, that are intended to increase accuracy and visibility of medications, make user workflows more efficient, and free time for clinicians to focus on higher value work.
The initial offering is MedTrack – OR, an RFID-enabled, single-deep drawer that is built to support operating room and anesthesia workflows and is designed to automatically track non-controlled medications without disrupting provider workflows. This is intended to help enable providers to focus on patient care versus documentation and to enable a ‘grab-and-go’ medication dispensing workflow. In the event of surgical emergencies, MedTrack OR is designed to provide instant access to essential medications while automatically updating Anesthesia WorkStation inventory counts once the user logs out. Automating this layer of medication tracking is expected to help clinical teams enhance provider satisfaction and patient safety and help ensure inventory accuracy and reduce stockouts.
MedVision
Outpatient clinics are often areas where health systems lack insight and control of medication inventory. Many of these settings are driven by manual processes such as hand-written tabulation and fax/email ordering has the potential to introduce inconsistencies and may lead to stockouts and higher drug costs.
MedVision is a web-enabled software product designed to deliver workflows and inventory management tools to help enable a health system’s outpatient clinics to restock medications directly from central pharmacies or Centralized Services Centers (CSCs). The solution is intended to provide real-time clinic medication inventory data that is accessible through intuitive dashboards. It is engineered to trigger automatic reordering from the central pharmacy or CSC when established par levels get low. The software also offers mobile device support for on-the-go inventory management in clinic storerooms and an optional integration with Epic medication administration record (MAR) that is built to automatically update inventory when a medication is administered from the electronic health record.
“MedVision helps us optimize medication procurement for our clinics,” says Brandon McLain, Associate Vice President of Pharmacy Operations at Baptist Health. “The software allows our clinics to order medications in individual unit doses, something we were unable to do through our wholesalers, which helps us reduce costs and waste. The automatic reordering functionality also ensures our clinic nurses and medical assistants don’t have to worry about the drug procurement side of the business, keeping them focused on patient care.”
Omnicell Innovation Lab
Earlier today, Omnicell announced the opening of the Company’s new Innovation Lab in Austin, Texas, a hub dedicated to addressing challenges across the medication and supply management journey. The Innovation Lab aims to be uniquely focused on defining and delivering opportunities that are intended to make healthcare operations more efficient and drive improved clinical and operational outcomes. We believe the opening of this new facility underscores Omnicell’s ongoing commitment to delivering innovation that is outcome-driven and designed to ease the burden on frontline staff in support of safer, smarter care.
To learn more about Omnicell’s outcomes-centric solutions, visit omnicell.com.
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