Future of Pharmacy Podcast: Insights and Innovation with Intelligent Pharmacy Data

Joy Somogyi
Senior Director, Product Marketing, Omnicell

One of the most renowned health systems in the country, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, is leading the way in research and treatment for childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

The mission of St. Jude is to advance cures and means of prevention, with no child denied treatment. A strong, efficient pharmacy operation is imperative to supporting this mission.

St. Jude's pharmacy supports up to 60 different drug trials at any given time. This includes patient information, medication inventory, and pharmacy care delivery. They keep around $8 million of inventory at any given time, and manage an annual drug spend of approximately $61 million.

Managing this complex medication inventory requires intelligent solutions that provide the insights and operational efficiency to help pharmacy leaders at St. Jude improve patient care, streamline workflow and compliance, and optimize financial performance.

What you can't see, you can't manage.

St. Jude's pharmacists are empowered by having access to near-real-time data. Before implementing Omnicell's solutions, they were unable to achieve this level of visibility. An intelligent infrastructure connects inventory in the warehouse, cabinets, anesthesia workstations, and central pharmacies.

One carousel manages inpatient inventory, and another carousel manages outpatient inventory. All medication supplies are managed through Omnicell's Central Pharmacy Manager and Intelligence Solutions, which give St. Jude high visibility into their medication supply chain.

St. Jude also has unique point of care automation needs. Conscious sedation is very common at St. Jude. Their certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) rely on regular access to those medications. St. Jude deploys more anesthesia carts than one might expect. Omnicell's Anesthesia Workstation medication dispensing carts allow the pharmacy to monitor what medications are used while ensuring CRNAs have easy access to what they need, creating a strong interdepartmental collaboration.

The backbone of all of this automation is cloud-based intelligence that is helping St. Jude to optimize their pharmacy supply chain through technology-enabled services. In just over six months, St. Jude saved more than $300,000 through optimization insights from Omnicell solutions. For a health system committed to covering the cost of treatment, that's money they can roll back into excellent care of their patients.

Hear more about St. Jude's journey to a technology-driven, intelligent pharmacy strategy in the latest episode of the Future of Pharmacy Podcast.

Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the author(s). These views are always subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and may not be held in perpetuity.