As hospitals and health systems nationwide continue their vaccination efforts, new hurdles continue to present themselves along the way. The least of which, is coming up with a workflow that can properly balance safety, documentation, and efficiency, while maintaining regulatory compliance.
Having a Compounding Management System that is optimized for your operation is crucial. For Mark Barricklow, RPH, BCSCP, Pharmacy Manager at Indiana University Health, the Assure-Trak® Compounding Management System has been invaluable to their operations, both before, and during, the pandemic.
Reduce Costs Without Sacrificing
Compliance or Safety
Mark’s pharmacy location within the Indiana University Health System was servicing roughly 800 inpatients per day, requiring a fairly active internal compounding operation to meet demand. In an effort to improve cost and quality control, Indiana University Health transitioned towards re-insourcing, rather than relying on outside vendors, to meet their needs.
A decision that continues to pay off.
“We average about $2 million savings per year by re-insourcing that compounding business. It’s one of those things that has worked really well for us over the last few years,” he said.
Reducing operational costs is often top of mind, but in Barricklow’s experience, the cost savings were just the beginning.
“Having excellent batch records has really helped us be more compliant from a regulatory standpoint. It’s helped us manage our workflow and understand where our products are being used and at what rate. To do some proactive management of items that we previously struggled to maintain and still provide excellent care for our patients,” he said.
Expedite Your Vaccine Efforts
with Assure-Trak®
Now that vaccines are becoming more widely available, the burden of vaccine distribution and administration has fallen on the shoulders of health care providers. Although there is one common goal – safe and efficient vaccination - each hospital, and pharmacy, has different needs to accommodate, and often requires a unique approach to best overcome the challenges they face.
“Our facility opened a clinic to provide COVID-19 vaccines starting with health care workers, but expanding out to some of the public, in the beginning of January. Currently, we are doing about 1,200 doses per day,” he said.
For Barricklow, the Assure-Trak® Compounding Management System was critical in getting his location prepared for the preparation, distribution, and administration of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Assure-Trak® has really helped us manage our vaccine prep and distribution in several ways; not the least of which, is the labeling function. It’s been especially important for us, as we have multiple brands in the system on the same days, to have those visually different with the color-coding,” he said.
Color-coded labeling is just one step that can be taken to reduce the risk of human error, especially given the all-hands-on-deck approach that many are taking in their vaccination efforts.
A multi-disciplinary team of nursing, physicians, pharmacists, and technicians are working together to vaccinate their community. The documentation and tracking capabilities of the Assure-Trak® Compounding Management System have helped to ensure their clinic is staffed appropriately.
“It’s a pretty big operation running a clinic 12 hours a day seven days a week. We utilize that data to be able to staff adequately, [and] to make sure we have the doses ready as patients arrive,” he said.
An Electronic Batch Record
Makes Documentation Easy
The vaccination efforts require collaboration with state and federal agencies. For the pharmacy, this primarily means the tracking and documentation of incoming vaccine shipments.
“We feel like it’s important to be able to track each step of the process. Having the lot numbers of the vaccine, and the lot numbers of the diluents, when we use those, has been very important for us to be able to maintain and retrieve those records,” he said.
Many are required to upload this data to a state database; and, in the event that the database is unavailable, having the Electronic Batch Record within Assure-Trak® can be a huge time-saver.
“We’ve also had a number of times when our state’s system, where we’re tracking all of this different information, has gone down for a little bit of time, and we’ve had to transition to a paper documentation system, and, as always with paper, it’s error prone,” he said.
But, thanks to Assure-Trak®, providing the required documentation to the state, once their system is back up and running, has been a pain free process.
“Having the batch records in Assure-Trak® we’re able to go back and reliably be able to provide the information to, to backload that information into the electronic system for the state,” he said.
Prepare for the Future, Today
with Assure-Trak®
The term “Unprecedented Times” has been thrown around a lot over the duration of the pandemic, but the reality is that there is nothing unprecedented about pandemics, or other extreme medical emergencies.
When an emergency strikes, and they will, you need to be ready to act fast. Often, having the right system in place ahead of time can be the difference between saving lives and losing them.
For Barricklow, the pandemic helped him to realize that his team was equipped with the tools they needed to handle future emergencies.
“This has been a really eye-opening experience for us at [Indiana University] Health; in terms of being able to be very nimble and provide a service that was sort of unexpected, while still maintaining our regular business operations, taking care of patients,” he said. “I think it’s really prepared us for the future, to really understand what our capacity is to do unusual things.”
For more information on how the Assure-Trak® Compounding Management System can support your facilities vaccination distribution, and future proof you for future emergencies contact us.