On August 3, RFID Journal published a report outlining San Diego's Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas adoption of our Intelliguard® Virtual Logbook in conjunction with the IntelliGuard® Pharmacy
>> For the full report, see Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas Expands RFID System to Manage Location of Drug Trays
The Last Mile for RFID-Enabled IntelliGuard® Pharmacy
In hospital pharmacies, this advancement is truly the “last mile” in the pharmacy process to deliver and manage medication kits and trays to clinicians and anesthesiologists for patient care.
The IntelliGuard® Logbook works in conjunction with the IntelliGuard® Pharmacy to record when medication-filled trays leave the hospital's pharmacy, where they are going and when they are returned to the pharmacy. IntelliGuard® Logbook enables the hospital staff to electronically input and document the tray destination, who it was deployed to, and what precise medication inventory (down to the specific lot number) is included.
>> See IntelliGuard® Logbook
The added intelligence of the Virtual Logbook function eliminates the need for a written logbook to be filled out by staff members when trays are dispensed from the pharmacy.
With Virtual Logbook, staff use Intelliguard® software on a touchscreen tablet to record the tray ID number and its deployed destination. Within the system, the tray ID number is linked to the precise inventory in the tray as well as intended destination, who deployed it, and to whom it was assigned. Once a tray is used and returned to the pharmacy, staff easily updates its status, indicating that it has come back for processing. In this way, pharmacy personnel can always determine where a specific medication is located, which can prove helpful if any drugs on that tray have been recalled or are nearing their expiration dates.
Since the IntelliGuard® Pharmacy was implemented at Scripps Memorial Encinitas, Douglas Johnston, the hospital’s pharmacy director, reports the hospital's staff has expressed satisfaction with the new technology. "They love the efficiency around this," he says.
Although actual time savings with the IntelliGuard® Logbook has not yet been measured, he notes, “running a report in the Intelliguard® System software to pinpoint a drug's location, versus sending workers out to physically retrieve and search through carts and trays can be potentially very significant in terms of savings."
MEPS Real-Time, Inc. is committed to using the power of RFID to enable the safest and most efficient processes in hospital pharmacy operations, and this is yet another example of our commitment to that mission.
Pharmacy leaders: We’d love to hear from you on other challenges that “keep you up at night” and how you are using new technology solutions to solve them.
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