Turnkey Services Are Advancing Adoption of Central Pharmacy Automation  

Neil DiBernardo, PharmD,
Omnicell Solution Design Pharmacist Consultant

The benefits of a fully autonomous pharmacy are widely recognized – reduced medication errors, less waste, improved efficiencies, more opportunity to focus on higher-value patient care. Yet many pharmacies are still putting off the adoption of autonomous solutions.  

Why?  

Often, the need to change is eclipsed by the fear and complexity of change. Health systems worry that the implementation of new technology can often be difficult and lengthy. Complicating matters is the need for change management, as many hospitals struggle to pull together a cohesive internal team to support the change management project. And we haven’t even discussed the challenge of making sure these systems are all properly integrated across the pharmacy supply chain.  

To overcome this reluctance to change, technology needs to be easy to adopt, and flexible enough to adapt to the increasing complexities of the central pharmacy.  

Health systems can benefit from full-service subscription-based models that include automation along with expert support staff. This comprehensive service model provides a clear, quick path to improved outcomes, faster adoption of new technologies with no capital investment. 

Automation for the storage and dispensing of every medication is becoming more cost effective and easier than ever to implement. Configurable and scalable architecture can fit the needs of all systems—at whatever level of automation pharmacies currently reside—and can expand with growth.  

The subscription-based, technology-as-a-service model ensures that pharmacy automation is up and running with less effort and financial risk than ever. Rather than buying, implementing, and operating the equipment itself, the health system can rely on dedicated experts who are trained operate and optimize equipment and contribute to overall operational efficiency.  

Leveraging performance-driven automated medication management solutions as a service helps pharmacists stay focused on patient care and keeps all clinicians operating at the top of their license. Of course, the business benefits are significant when you consider both the “Opportunity Cost” associated with using your hospital teams to implement and “Total Cost of Ownership” of maintaining these systems and optimizing them on an ongoing basis.   

Let’s face it: automation on its own is not enough. Hospitals and health systems must leverage new turnkey operational service models to optimize and maximize the benefit of automation technology. Leveraging new technologies within the as-a-service model will help unlock the human potential that leads to superior patient care and safety.  

To learn more about the turnkey operational service model, click here to read the white paper “Central Pharmacy Automation As a Service – A New Path Forward.”  

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.