Are You Budgeting for Pharmacy Automation?

Implementing automation is a significant investment and many hospital pharmacies need to evaluate the real need for deployment. An article in this month’s issue of Pharmacy Purchasing & Products, “Long-term Budgeting for Pharmacy Automation,” discusses the importance of evaluating and determining which hospital operations require automation upgrades in order to provide a positive return on investment (ROI) and lasting benefits.  I know how hard it is to find benchmark numbers for the ROI on Automation so articles like this one are particularly valuable.

Another great benchmark story comes from  University of Virginia Health System (UVA), followed a similar process to evaluate the benefits of deploying pharmacy automation and the main results they achieved were:

• Inventory carrying costs were decreased by $500,000
• Medication dispensing errors were decreased by 76%
• Order turn-around-time were improved by 92%
• Medication administration errors were reduced by 40%
• Drug costs were decreased by $7 million (12%)

With Talyst automation technology, the medication dispensing system is driven by the barcodes found on each and every medication. This process begins by importing the daily delivery of medications from the distributor into the perpetual inventory software. This increased inventory turns from 5 to 11 and has generated an inventory reduction of $500,000.

The medication administration process is also driven by barcode medication charting.  The new system has decreased medication administration errors by 40% and provides nurses with immediate access to 90% of their medications within 5 minutes of entering the order.  The prior model required an average processing time of 60 minutes – a time savings of 55 minutes.

Since the medication dispensing system is now driven by pharmacy technicians, UVA’s pharmacists have more time to spend on the patient floor. Unit based pharmacists are available to provide support to prescribing physicians, including recommendations for more effective medications.  The new model has facilitated the more rational use of medications leading to decreased drug expenditures of $7 million.

Is your hospital planning to budget for pharmacy automation? What lasting benefits do you want to see with automation technology?

This is the short link.