Customer stories
eMedicines Management in Mental Health
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When Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust integrated with Community Health Oxfordshire to form Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust (OHFT), they needed to consolidate their pharmacy services to provide safe, effective pharmacy services to patients.
The trust’s pharmacy department developed a Business Case to identify the benefits of a full electronic medicines management system.
The trust required a system that would:
- Improve communication of drug and patient data between trust sites
- Include real-time clinical decision support to identify potentially dangerous drug interactions
- Facilitate automatic updates to the PAS system
- Improve the support for out of hours pharmacy
- Provide seamless access to remote users
- Support the auditing process of clinical and administrative process
- Prove the cost savings
Michael Marven, chief pharmacist at OHFT stated “Our trust was looking for a medicines management solution and a supplier that was both robust & flexible enough to meet our individual needs. Following a thorough evaluation of UK suppliers we chose EMIS [now Optum] and have not been disappointed. Their solution and continued support has enabled our department to expand our capacity and services.”
Paperless solution
Prior to the eMM solution, OHFT used a system of photocopying and faxing patients drug charts and pathology results. This required manual data re-entry into their PAS. By using our solution, this removed the manual process and improved speed of processing information within the pharmacy, saving time for staff and enabling them to spend more time on the ward.
Hitting Targets
We delivered a fully integrated Pharmacy Stock Management & Dispensing System that supported electronic Medicines Management. The solution also included a Finance reporting package.
After the trust agreed to this solution, work began on transferring the patient and drug data into electronic records. Despite minor issues regarding the consolidation of four thousand drug lines to three thousand, delivery continued as planned. Our integrated Pharmacy and eMedicines Management solution went live on the same day.
Our solution not only tracks prescriptions, dispensing and eMM, we also add transactions and events such as drugs reconciliation into each patient’s electronic health record. The Trust can now accurately establish audit trails that help improve accountability and we also support clinical drug trials.”