Driving Value Through Technology-as-a-Service

Dennis Wright
Senior Director, Central Pharmacy Product Marketing, Omnicell

As one of the early adopters of the vision of Autonomous Pharmacy, Texas Children's Hospital in Houston saw the opportunity for connected automation, intelligent data, and technology-enabled services to drive radical change in their medication management strategy.

Texas Children's Hospital Operations was spending $160 million per year on medication, with over 40% of the stock being wasted due to expired products. With those numbers, it became clear that something needed to change – fast!

Texas Children's Hospital staff were put under extreme pressure as they continued throwing away millions of dollars each year in excess drugs and unneeded supplies.

Overreliance on 503B facilities for sterile compounding led them to seek a solution that would reduce outsourcing costs and waste by better managing supply challenges through improved efficiency. Gee Mathen, Director of Pharmacy Clinical Applications and Technical Services, realized that technology alone wouldn't solve the issue.

Mathen and his team understood that the consistency of their IV compounding robot could not be achieved by doing it themselves; they recognized that achieving their goals would require input from a third-party expert with experience in pharmacy automation. Enter technology-as-a-service. This unique solution provides the robotic technology along with the expert personnel and associated resources to ensure successful adoption and optimization of IV robotic technology to align to pharmacy goals.

Technology as-a-service is grounded in an outcomes-based agreement on IV services, helping to alleviate the HR burden while strengthening the collaboration by using a shared risk approach. More importantly, Texas Children's is now able to maximize output for the IV compounding robot, while mitigating errors, thus improving patient care and creating a safer environment. And by reallocating high-value pharmacy staff resources, the organization is enhancing safety, quality, and financials.

The success of Texas Children's IV compounding service has allowed them to expand dispensing and elevate the trust of central pharmacy throughout their health system. Mathen says it's all thanks to embracing and promoting the value of the technology as-a-service approach.

With this initial success, Texas Children's is now expanding technology-as-a-service to their central pharmacy dispensing operations. With Central Pharmacy Dispensing Service that includes the XR2 robot, Texas Children's is able to automate critical workflows to safely and efficiently support medication distribution, with near 100% accuracy.

Join us on Tuesday, Oct. 5, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. PDT at Omnicell Illuminate 2021 to learn how you can drive value through technology as-a-service at your healthcare facility.