Customer stories
Transforming care from the patient's bedside
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To improve their pharmacy services, Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust (Calderdale and Huddersfield) implemented our electronic Medicines Management solution.
Building upon their existing Hospital Pharmacy system, we worked with the trust again to implement a full electronic medicines management (eMM) solution which would help them further improve patient safety and accuracy of patient information.
Re-evaluating systems
The implementation of eMM gave the pharmacy the opportunity to re-assess their methodologies and operational workflows. They identified where changes to processes needed to be made, allowing reallocation of resources to improve patient care.
After the system went live the same process was undertaken by an evaluation team to identify the improvements of eMM.
Increased pharmacy performance
The evaluation team found the effects of eMM to be revolutionary in the transformation of their pharmacy services and capabilities.
- Prior to eMM, prescription transfer from the ward to the dispensary could take up to two hours. This is now instantaneous, improving dispensing speed.
- Potential for transcription errors is removed, resulting in improved dispensing accuracy.
- Pharmacy workload is now distributed evenly throughout the day, preventing delays and uneven workflow.
- Pharmacy staff are more available on the wards, providing better support to medical and nursing staff
Improved patient records
An electronic patient medical record (PMR) is built within eMM, when ensures that drug charts remain with the patient, saving time for medical staff that require access.
The PMR includes improved Decision Support and a central record of allergies to assist pharmacists in screening for dangerous drug interactions. The system also takes into account medicines brought into the hospital by the patient, ensuring accuracy of patient medical records and improving patient safety.
Real time information
Managers can access live information showing an overview of the outstanding workloads in the dispensary as well as on wards, helping them manage their resources much more effectively.
The Benefits Realisation Team at Calderdale and Huddersfield have been able to determine that eMM is a faster, more efficient and safer way of supplying medication to patients on wards.
I believed that eMM would provide a step-change in Pharmacy efficiency, safety and patient care, which has proven to be the case. We have realised multiple benefits in productivity, efficiency and performance but moreover we’ve discovered new and better ways to work. The overall result is a faster and more accurate medicines management process to help patient care”