Omnicell ULM part pack feature streamlines one-stop-dispensing and frees up staff time at Morriston Hospital
Morriston is one of the largest hospitals in Wales with around 720 beds. It is the regional acute tertiary hospital for South West Wales, offering a range of specialist services. Morriston has one of the busiest emergency departments (A&E) in Wales. The hospital pharmacy provides information and advice on all aspects of drug therapy to healthcare professionals working in the Trust’s hospitals and within the community. The service and set up of the pharmacy are suitable to serve inpatient and outpatient requests. The central pharmacy has been moving towards a technician-led organisation in the past years. Automation and two Omnicell robotic storage systems have helped to smooth the pharmacy’s workflow and have resulted in faster work turnaround.
The Challenge
The hospital supply patient medicines using one-stop-dispensing (OSD), which leads to part pack handling in the pharmacy. The current process of returning part packs into the storage and dispensing robot is time consuming and error prone. As a result, pharmacy time is spent on operational and repetitive tasks.
The hospital supply patient medicines using one-stop-dispensing (OSD), which leads to part pack handling in the pharmacy. The current process of returning part packs into the storage and dispensing robot is time consuming and error prone. As a result, pharmacy time is spent on operational and repetitive tasks.
The Solution
Omnicell has introduced a middleware, called Universal Logistics Management (ULM) for seamless medication management automation in conjunction with a Robotic Dispensing Solution (RDS). It acts like a universal translator facilitating communication between various applications from different software systems into the robot. The “Part Pack” module further automates the part pack handling in the central pharmacy and enables seamless return into the robot.
Omnicell has introduced a middleware, called Universal Logistics Management (ULM) for seamless medication management automation in conjunction with a Robotic Dispensing Solution (RDS). It acts like a universal translator facilitating communication between various applications from different software systems into the robot. The “Part Pack” module further automates the part pack handling in the central pharmacy and enables seamless return into the robot.
The Impact
Significant time savings, cost savings and reduction in increased splitting waste.
- 50% time saving to return part packs into the robot.
- Time it took to return 40 packs to the robot before the implementation of the ULM: 1 hour.
- Time it now takes to return 40 packs to the robot after the implementation of the ULM: 30 minutes.
- Up to 100% reduction in increased splitting waste – before the implementation of ULM it was difficult to know which medication packs had already been opened resulting in another box of the same medication to be opened which was causing significant more packs opened, roughly 100-120 per day. As Omnicell robot dispensing system stores and manages the part packs, the team can easily find out if a medication pack has already been opened, therefore a new pack is only opened if required.
- New process leads to savings of £7,171.25 per annum on personal with a ROI within less than 3 years.
